Find Me In the Dark
by RGIG
Summary: The story of my OC, Skylar Steele, joining the team in X-Men: First Class. Charles Xavier x OC I did my best to make it interesting! T for violence and language
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So to start out I'm going to go ahead and say that this story will be AU. I'm going to try and follow the plot of X-Men First Class, however I'm adding a character so things are bound to go a bit differently. Also, I'll be messing with ages a bit. You see, I have no clue how old Charles is supposed to be in FC, so I'll be assuming a lot of things. At this point, I'll be going with 27 for him. (If you want an explanation PM me and I'll go into detail.) So there's that-Oh! And I do not under any circumstances own any of Marvel's characters or plots. I am making zero money from this I don't want to. - Love RGIG**

CH. 1 **(WARNINGS: CURSING)**

A loud, suffering sigh escaped Skylar's lips as she leaned heavily against the counter. She was on hour twelve of her thirteen hour shift, and she was beyond exhausted. She had worked in this dump of a restaurant for just about five years now, and she had hated every single day of it. She couldn't just quit, though.

She had been on the run for most of her life. As a result, she had no official papers or proof of her citizenship, and this shithole had been the only place that would hire her without those very important things. They had accepted her story that she attended the University in town and told her that she could start right then if she was willing to take a lowered pay

Skylar rolled her eyes at the memory as she brushed her long, dark brown hair out of her face. She couldn't even wish to go back in time and stop herself from taking the offer because this job was the only thing keeping her off the streets. Of course her rat hole of an apartment was barley a step up from the street, but at least it kept the rain off of her head...mostly.

The brunette shook her head to clear it of that train of thought. A large group of college age kids walked in the door and stopped to read the menu. Skylar got ready to write down orders and smiled politely at the group. They were all soaking wet from the storm outside and dripping water all over the floor. Mentally, the blue-eyed cashier seethed at the thought of mopping the floor for the third time that night.

As they came up to order, though, she put the thought out of her head and focused on getting the items correct. After all eight of them had ordered and Skylar had given the cards to the cook in the back, the brunette went for the mop. She got to work on the floor and let her mind wander, allowing the kids' chatter to float over her calmingly.

They were worried about finals, apparently their physics professor was a real hardass. Skylar wondered what it would be like to go to school. She'd had the same thought many times before, since she had never gone to school as a child. She'd gotten all her knowledge from spending whole days at local libraries instead. She loved to read, and any subject was game as long as she could get interested in it.

She was brought out if her own world when the order bell rang. Skylar looked up and noticed that she was done mopping anyway. So, she leaned the mop against the far wall and ran back behind the counter to grab the waiting food. Just as she got all of the plates balanced on her tray, Skylar heard the door open again. Her hair fell into her eyes as she turned to see the new customers.

A puff of air from her mouth moved the brunette strands enough for her to glimpse the two men. One was tall with short, brown hair and a scowl on his face. The other was average height with long, dark brown hair. Their eyes locked and he gave Skylar and absolutely charming smile, his light blue eyes shining.

'Ooo, cute!' Her inner thoughts squealed at the shorter man. Then she noticed their soaked clothes, 'I don't give a fuck how cute he is, if they get this floor wet again I will strangle them.' Skylar silently laughed at her violent inner voice and walked around the counter with the first group's food. She missed the slightly concerned glance the man shot at his wet clothes as she called over her shoulder to them. "I'll be right with you!"

The twenty three year old made quick work of handing out orders and turned back to the counter. When she got back to the cash register and looked up, she saw that the new customers seemed to be having a silent conversation. They were looking at each other pointedly, yet neither men said a word. Thy also hadn't moved from the welcome mat at the door.

'Oh well, at least the floor is still dry.' Skylar shrugged slightly and leaned against the counter again. She ran a hand though her hair and closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. A sudden wave of annoyance washed over her and her eyes snapped open. She checked on the college kids, looking for a sign that she had gotten an order wrong. Thy all seemed fine, though, so she moved her gaze over to the men in the doorway.

There is it, the taller man's scowl had deepened and he was rolling his eyes. The cute one must have said something he didn't like. A wave of amusement washed over her then and she saw the cute one's mouth twitch like he was trying to hide a smile. Skylar wondered what could possibly be so amusing about the silence they had been having since they walked in. She also wondered if they were going to order anything. It had been at least five minutes since they had walked through the door.

The girl glanced at the taller man again and their eyes met. A wave of anticipation hit her like a truck. Skylar sucked in a sharp breath and she could feel her eyes widen. She saw that man's eyes flick over to the group eating their food. She followed his gaze with her own eyes and saw that they were nearly done with their meals.

Anxiety clutched at Skylar's gut. Just who were these guys? The brunette looked back to them- they still hasn't moved from the door. Were they waiting for the students to leave? Why?

'They know,' Her inner voice supplied. No, they couldn't- she had been so careful. 'They caught up to you anyway.' Now Skylar could feel her heart racing and her breathing pick up. Her left shoulder twinged with the memory of pain and that only served to freak her out even more. 'They're waiting until you're alone. You need I get out of here-'

Her frantic thoughts were cut off when she saw all of the students stand suddenly. They all turned and walked out the door silently and as one. They swerved around the two men who still stood in the doorway, not even looking at them. The shorter man had two fingers pressed against his temple and a frown on his face.

'This is it,' Skylar swallowed thickly as the door slid closed behind the last of the group. She had no time, nowhere to run.

The taller man sighed and took a step forward, "Finally Charles, you should have done that sooner." His deep voice held an accent that Skylar couldn't place.

"I only did it then because we're making her nervous," the cute one- Charles said, his accent clearly British and very posh. The two of them walked up to the counter finally, "Sorry about he floor, love, don't mean to cause more work for you." He looked to Skylar with a charmingly apologetic smile, but the girl barely registered it. She braced herself to run for the back door as they stopped in front of her.

"Oh, love, please don't run." Charles said holding up his hands, plans out. "We're not here to hurt you."

"What? How-" Skylar blurted out, eyes widening in surprise.

"How did he know what you were thinking?" The taller man asked, cutting her off. "You're not the only one with...gifts."

Skylar gasped quietly, taking a few steps back. No way. "You...I dont- What?" Ah yes, very eloquent. The girl's brain was running faster than her mouth at this point.

"We're getting ahead if ourselves," Charles said, "My name is Charles Xavier, and this is my friend and colleague, Erik Lehnsherr. We'd like to talk with you for a few minutes, if that's alright." He held Skylar's gaze and gave her a reassuring smile. A wave of peace washed over the girl and she knew. She was safe, they hadn't found her. She didn't have to be afraid.

"Um, yeah," she cleared her throat and nodded, "Yeah, sure. I just- well, I-I'm still on the clock for another hour-"

Erik cut her off again, "I've got it covered." He flicked his fingers and Skylar watched as the door locked itself and the OPEN sign flipped to CLOSED as the blinds shut themselves. Her eyes widened again and she looked up at Erik in wonderment. "Shall we sit?"

All Skylar could do was nod and walk around the counter to sit in the chair Charles pulled out for her. The two sat down across from her at the round table and Charles touched his temple and closed his eyes.

"Alright, the cook is...ocuppied," he nodded to Erik and smiled at the brunette girl across from them. "Let's begin with a name then, love."

"Oh," Skylar blushed. She wasn't sure why, but she felt very nervous at the moment- maybe it was the mild panic attack from earlier. "Sorry, my name is Skylar. Skylar Steele."

"Well then, Miss Steele-" Charles started but Skylar cut him off.

"Please, just Skylar is fine." Ms. Steele made her feel odd.

"Skylar then," Charles smiled, "We came to all to you about your abilities." Skylar nodded, blowing her hair out of her eyes when it fell in front of her face again. "You see, you have them because of a mutation in your x-gene. This mutation allows us all to do extraordinary things. For example, Erik can control all metals, and I myself can read and communicate with people's minds."

"Charles and I are gathering a group of mutants, and we would like you to join us " Erik said, leaning forward, "Why don't you show us what you can do?"

Skylar's eyebrows raised, "Oh, um, ok." The brunette stood up and looked around for a moment. Her gaze settled on the table to their left and she lifted her hand out towards it. Her middle and ring finger pressed together while her other fingers spread out and suddenly a black energy- almost like a flame- arched around her hand in a half cirlce.

On top of the table she was looking at, the napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers, and ketchup bottle were all coated in black and lifted into the air. They circled in the air for a moment and gently came to a rest back on the table top. The energy dissipated from around Skylar's hand and she lowered the appendage to her side. She looked back at Charles and Erik and smiled sheepishly.

"There's that and, um," she sat back down and bit her lip, looking for the words. "It's hard to describe really, but...Well, basically I can feel other people's emotions. That just happens all on its own, though. I don't know how to not do it." She flicked her hair out of her eyes and shrugged. Her blue eyes found the tabletop and she bit her lip again. She couldn't understand why she was being so nervous. She felt completely safe with these two strangers...maybe she was going insane, actually.

"Brilliant!" Charles's exclamation drew her eyes up to see his wide smile. "A double mutation, then!" He looked to **Erik** and nodded pointedly. "Skylar, we would love for you to join our team. You could be a huge help, love."

"Team?" Skylar raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Yes, we're putting together a team of mutants, like us," Erik supplied. "We need all the help we can get."

"What would I be helping with exactly?" The brunette asked, guarded. She looked to Charles and he adopted a remorseful look. A wave of sadness hit Skylar to go along with it.

"Not all other mutants are content to live peacefully with humans." Charles started, "A mutant named Sebastian Shaw is intent upon putting mutants at the top of the pecking order. Only, he plans to kill millions if people to do it." Skylar gasped softly at the thought. Millions? How would he even do that? "He is planning to wage a war between Russia and America involving nuclear missiles. The whole world will perthe and he believes that the nuclear power will make us mutants stronger "

Skylar shook her head, "That's insane!" Charles nodded his agreement. The girl sighed and looked to the ceiling for a moment. 'Well it would really suck if the whole world got nuked,' she thought, 'And I guess that my being there couldn't hurt, even if I'm not that great of a help.' She looked back to the men across from her, 'I'd get to meet other mutants, too, that'll be cool. And hell, even if this sucks ass I'll get to spend more time looking at cutie-pie over here. Why not?'

The twenty three year old took a deep breath an shrugged, "Sure. Sounds like it'll be a blast."

 **A/N: So there's the first bit. Lemme know if you liked it? Hated it? S'all cool. The next chapter shouldn't take long to finish, and I've got about 9 of them planned for this (# may increase depending on how bored I get). - Love RGIG**


	2. Chapter 2

CH. 2 (WARNINGS: Cursing)

A/N: I got bored and finished chapter 2 a bit early, so here ya go. -Love RGIG

EDIT: Good lord, I'm a so sorry about how many spelling mistakes were in this! I went through and tried to fix them all, sorry if I didn't catch a few!

'Well this is fun,' Skylar's sarcastic inner voice mused. Currently, the telekinetic girl was seated on the floor with her back pressed into the corner of the wall. She had followed Charles and Erik out of the restaurant and they'd taken her to the CIA of all places.

And then they'd just left her there. They'd shown her to a room with a few couches and a pinball machine that also already held a few people. Charles had told her they were the other recruits and then he and Erik had left. The brunette couldn't help but feel betrayed as the door clicked behind her and six pairs of eyes locked onto her.

Skylar had frozen as soon as they all looked up. A ton of emotions washed over her from all over the room and mixed with hers as well. She didn't have time to sort them all out before hey changed again and she felt like she was drowning in them. After a full minute had passed with her just standing there, the others lost interest and went back to what they had been doing. Only a beautiful blonde girl kept looking at her.

"Hi," she said with a smile. Skylar locked eyes with her and forced a small smile onto her own face.

"Hi." Her voice shook with the single syllable. Before the blonde could speak again, though, Skylar had quickly looked at the floor and walked to the corner of the room. She sat down and closed her eyes against the sudden migraine that had appeared.

She hadn't moved since and that had all happened over an hour ago. The others had made small talk and some of the boys had played with the pinball machine. The two other girls had been talking for a while now and Skylar could feel how uneasy the dark haired girl was here. 'I'm with you, sister,' she thought.

"We need to think of codenames," the blonde girl said suddenly. She looked around the room at everyone. Skylar saw them all come to sit at the couches. The blonde looked back at her and Skylar sighed.

'And now we're bonding, ok then.' She stood slowly and sat on the armrest of the couch the girls were on. The brunette smiled shyly at everyone and looked back at the ground. 'Nice carpet.'

"We're government agents now, right?" The blonde asked- Skylar thought she had heard someone call her Raven earlier. "We need codenames. I want to be Mystique."

The redheaded boy- Sean, maybe?- spoke up, "Damn! I wanted to be Mystique." Everyone laughed. Skylar liked Sean immediately for lightening the room's atmosphere.

"Well too bad, I called it," Raven replied. Then, suddenly she was gone and there were two Seans in the room. "Besides, I'm much more mysterious than you." They watched as Raven turned back into herself and everyone clapped. Raven looked to the dark skinned boy across from herself. "What about you, Darwin?"

"Well," he started with a smile, "Darwin's already a nickname so that works." Skylar wondered what his real name was. "I adapt to survive- here." Darwin stood and walked to the fish tank behind his chair. Then he stuck his whole head under the water. Skylar could feel his anticipation and understood why when a set of gills formed on the sides of his face.

'Now that's a useful mutation!' Her brain supplied as she clapped for him. He shook the water off of his face and bowed.

"I want to be called Banshee." Sean spoke up.

"Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" The tall boy with dark hair asked. Skylar nodded, thinking that same thing.

"You might want to cover your ears." The ginger smirked and leaned forward. Everyone did as he said, watching as he took a deep breath. When he let it out with a scream, the window to Skylar's right shattered into a million tiny shards.

'Ok, I get it,' Skylar thought. Everyone had such awesome powers here. She hoped she compared- her powers were so normal to her it was almost like they were normal. An extension of her arms or something, and she couldn't see anything extraordinary about them. Honestly, her telekenesis was only serving to make her lazy.

"And you?" Sean turned to the dark haired girl with a grin. Everyone turned to her as well as she stood up and shucked off her jacket.

"My stage name was Angel." She turned around and they saw wings peel off of her back and arms.

"You can fly?" Raven asked excitedly. Skylar had to admit that flying would be awesome.

"Yeah, and- um," Angel turned to face the broken window. She made a face and spit out some sort of ball. It hit a statue outside and sizzled again the metal. Acid?

'Awesome.' Skylar clapped for the girl. 'Though, I don't really see how acid spit translates to Angel.'

"Hank, what about you?" Raven asked the boy with the dark hair. The blonde boy who had been silent up until this point spoke before Hank could, however.

"I've got one for him- Bigfoot." He chuckled at his own joke and Skylar could feel Hank's embarrassment wash over her.

"Well you know what they say about guys with big feet," Raven piped up. She pointedly looked down at the blonde's feet, "And yours look kind of small."

"Damn." Skylar laughed. Raven smiled at her and looked at Hank.

Darwin held up his hands in a peaceful manner, "Alright now, come on. Alex, what can you do?" Everyone looked back at him expectantly.

"Oh no, I can't do it here." He shook his head. Protests rang out from everyone. "Alright, alright! Get down when I tell you." He stood and stepped out of the hole where the window had been. Everyone moved to the window to watch. "Get back," Alex growled at them. For a moment everyone moved back, but curiosity won out over safety and everyone moved to the window again. Alex shook his head and turned to the statue.

Skylar watched as a red energy flowed around Alex. He threw three disks of the energy away from himself. One sliced the statue in half and he let the energy dissipate. Skylar whistled and the others clapped. Alex made his way back inside the room and everyone sat down again. All eyes turned expectantly towards Skylar.

The brunette blushed and looked anywhere but at the other mutants in the room. "I-um, I don't have a name in mind." She said, mentally kicking herself for not thinking of one while she had the chance.

"Well show us what you can do and we'll pick one!" Raven said, the others made noises of encouragement. Skylar blushed even more with all eyes on her.

"Ok, um," she cast her eyes about the room, looming for something she could use to demonstrate with. "Ok, here." She stood and took a few steps back until she was at the edge of he room. 'Here goes the wow factor.' She smirked to herself and held up her hands, middle and ring fingers touching. "Hold on." The black energy formed around her hands and encased the couches and chairs her teammates were sitting on. Slowly, she made them rise into the air and levitate.

"Oh my god!" Raven grabbed onto the armrest and laughed. "This is so cool!"

Darwin looked at her excitedly, "Can you do this with everything?"

"Mhmm," Skykar nodded, placing them all back on the ground gently. "There's that and I can feel other people's emotions." The empath shrugged and sat down again as everyone clapped for her. Their joy and exhilaration hit her and she couldn't help but smile.

"Ok, ok, so Alex with be Havok," Raven said, giving one name, "But I have nothing for you."

Hank looked up, "How about Nyx?" Everyone looked at him strangely but Skylar spoke up with a grin.

"Like the Greek goddess of night?" She asked, remembering the many books she'd read on Greek mythology.

"Oh yeah!" Darwi exclaimed, "Because of the colour, right?" Hank nodded and looked to Skylar.

"I like it," she smiled and Raven stood up, holding up a glass.

"We're a team then!" She said and those who had drinks lifted theirs and drank. "Oh! Wait we forgot Charles and Erik!"

"Erik should be Magneto," Sean said and Raven pointed at him.

"Perfect!" She laughed, "Charles wants to be a professor so he should be… Professor X!" Everyone nodded. Skylar, however, burst out laughing. "What?" Raven asked, looking offended.

"No, no, Professor X is great!" Skylar quickly shook her head, "I just thought of something stupid."

"What was it?" Hank asked.

"Nothing I just- Well Charles brought everyone here, right? Kind of like he found us and 'showed us the right path'." Everyone nodded along, "I just thought that made him kind of like Mutant Jesus." Sean started laghing so hard that he fell out of his chair. Raven doubled over, holding her stomach.

"Oh that's great!" She laughed, "He'll love that." She wiped her eyes and looked around the room at everyone. "Let's have some fun," she smirked.

The others had been "having fun" for close to an hour before Skylar had to leave the room. It wasn't hatt she didn't enjoying being around them, she just had to take a break. There was so much emotional static with everyone in the room and it had started to give her another migraine. Plus, she felt bad for wrecking the room they had been provided.

The brunette had stepped out of the hole in the wall where the window had once been and taken a seat in the grass off the to side of the building. The cool night air blew gently against her face and she was thankful for the long sleeved shirt she was wearing. She pulled one sleeve up a bit and looked at the marks on her arm. They ran all along her arms from her shoulders to her wrists and they were a deep black that curved in graceful arcs over her skin.

Skylar had had the marks ever since her telekinesis had first developed. They had appeared when she had accidentally thrown a book across the room she had shared with her brother, Allen.

"Allen," she whispered to the sky, "I think you'd like these guys...I do." She sighed and ran a hand over her left shoulder. A tear escaped her eye and slid down her cheek. "I'm not alone anymore…" Her blue eyes slid closed for a moment adn she took a deep breath. When they opened again she wiped the tear away and smiled at the stars above her.

And then a range of new emotions washed over her. Anger and disbelief were the most prominent. When she looked around, the source was clear: Charles and Erik were back, and they didn't appreciate the damage to the window and the statue. A woman was with them, too, and her emotions basically mirrored Charles's.

Skylar quickly stood up and walked to meet them at the window hole. She could hear Charles scolding them before she even got there.

"Who broke the statue?" The woman asked, point in to the decapitated bronze man.

"That was Alex," Hank said and the others pointed at the blonde damningly.

"No, his name is Havok now!" Raven said and pointed at Charles, "You're Professor X, and you," she pointed at Erik, "Are Magneto." There was a moment of silence before Erik scoffed.

"Amazing." He turned and walked away from everyone.

"I expected more from you," Charles said to Raven. He turned to follow Erik but saw Skylar standing off to the side. "And where were you?" She could feel his annoyance hit her in the gut and she frowned.

"Right here," she shot back, "And you shouldn't be so hard on everyone." She motioned towards the room holding the others, "This is first time they could be themselves without hiding- they were just enjoying it." Since she could feel their emotions, the excessive party made more sense to Skylar.

"This isn't a party, or a game!" Charles said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "We're facing a war here." He sighed and shook his head, "Look, it doesn't matter, just- Just don't let it happen again." With that he stalked off after Erik. Skylar watched him go, feeling the worry radiating off of him, and she bit her lip. She could understand where he was coming from, but she knew how the others felt as well.

"We'll have to get you a new room," the woman that had come in with Charles and Erik was telling the group. "Come on then," she motioned for everyone to follow her, "I'll have to explain this mess to everyone as well."

Skylar sighed and followed the woman across the lawn. The others dejectedly followed as well and she could feel their embarrassment hovering over the group. The empath looked to the stars again before they entered a different part of the building. 'Maybe being alone was easier.''

 **A/N: Fun fun fun. Lemme know if you loved it. Hated it. S'all gucci. Ch. 3 should be up real soon. -Love RGIG**


	3. Chapter 3

CH. 3 **(WARNINGS: Cursing)**

 **A/N: Yo. So I went back and fixed the spelling errors in Ch. 2! Sorry about how many there were. Anyways, this chapter has a lot more original content, and a hole hell of a lot more Charles (yay). Hope you guys enjoy- Love RIGI**

The new room they had settled into was almost exactly the same as the last. Two large windows took up the majority of the walls on either side of the room. On one side the view was of what Hank and Raven had called Cerebro, and the other showed the same courtyard the other room had connected to.

Everyone had spread out, much more subdued. Small talk was made and Skylar learned a more about everyone, but soon she was ready to get out of their confines. She felt like they were naughty children that had been put in Time-out.

They'd seen neither Erik nor Charles since they'd been relocated as well. Skylar began to wonder when they were going to talk about their situation. She knew Charles and Erik were older than everyone in the room, though Skylar was closest in age to them, but she didn't see why they were being excluded. The two men seemed to know so much more about why everyone was here, yet none of the others knew much more than Skylar herself.

The brunette let out a small huff of frustration at her train of thought. Darwin looked over at her with a raised eyebrow at the sound. The two had been talking earlier about what little they knew of Shaw, but Skylar had gone quiet, retreating into her own headspace.

"Alright there, Nyx?" The dark skinned boy asked her, a smirk on his face at her name. Skylar gave him a small smile for it- she'd always wanted a friend to give her a nickname. This was close enough.

"I'm fine, just thinking," the empath replied with a shrug. Darwin shrugged back and went back to reading the magazine he had found. A few moments later, Skylar stood abruptly. "I'll be back." She said to no one in particular as she strode toward the double doors leading to a hallway.

Hank looked up, adjusting his glasses, "I don't think they want us to leave the room." He looked to Raven for support.

"Yeah, where are you going to go anyway?" The blonde asked, turning to talk to the girl over the back of the couch.

"I'll be fine," Skylar waved away Hank's concern, "I just need some answers." She didn't stay to listen to their protests, pushing the doors open and slipping out quickly. As the heavy metal clicked shut behind her she took a deep breath and smiled. Just as soon as the smile appeared on her face, it fell into a frown as she realized that she had no clue where to go.

Charles could be anywhere- hell, he and Erik could both be off on some mission to catch Shaw right now for all she knew. She seriously doubted that Moira would tell her anything- she got the feeling that the CIA agent didn't really like her. It wasn't like she knew where to find her either anyway.

'Damn,' the telekinetic thought, 'I really should have thought this through a bit more.' She bit her lip and looked down the empty hallway in front of her, seeing many different routes to take from here. Skylar set her jaw and straightened her back, 'Well I'm sure as hell not going back in there. Just pick a direction and walk, Steele.'

Skylar let her feet carry her down the hall for a few paces before turning down another corridor. She followed this pattern for nearly ten minutes, not passing a single person, surprisingly. When she came up to a familiar hallway, however, she faltered in her steps. She squinted suspiciously at a small painting that hung under a light fixture on the wall. It depicted an older man in a black suit with a stern expression on his face. The empath could have sworn that she'd seen it before only a few minuets ago, but that would mean that she had gone in a circle. The brunette had specifically tried _not_ to do just that, though, so she really hoped that it was just a similar picture.

She spent another few seconds studying the painting before deciding to just move on. If she had gone in a circle, then she'd just go in a different direction this time around. And so she did, taking a left instead of a right this time. Close to five minutes later she came to a halt yet again.

"No way." She groaned, looking at a small painting of a man in a black suit with a stern expression on his face. Her brown hair whipped around as she looked behind her at the hallway she'd just walked down. "There's no way I went in the same circle." She looked back at the painting and frowned.

Skylar had been walking around in a directionless path for close to twenty minutes now, and now she had gone in at least two circles. Maybe this hadn't been the best plan after all. And why the hell hadn't she seen a single person this whole time? Sure it was late, but there had to be some kind of night shift, right? Were they hiding so they wouldn't have to give her directions- 'Ok, back track to when you were making sense,' her inner voice piped in. Her blue eyes, darted from side to side, looking for any sign of recent human activity. The halls were spotless and all the doors were closed, though. Everything was silent as well…

Suddenly Skylar really regretted not just staying put in the room with the others. She didn't know where she was, or how to get back, and now she just didn't want to be out here anymore. Her eyes stung with unshed tears and she leaned her back against the wall. "Gods, look at you," she said to herself, "Lost and crying like a child. All because you couldn't be patient." A tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek quickly followed by another on the other cheek. "What did you think you would even do? Wander around for a while and what? Charles would magically appear out of nowhere?" More tears fell and Skylar slammed her head back on the wall. "Idoit!" She hissed out angrily at herself.

She closed her eyes and tried to will her tears away. It would be embarrassing as hell if someone did come by and saw her crying. The girl wiped her cheeks and sniffed, trying to pull herself together. She had to think of how to get back, and wandering around until she stumbled upon the room by chance was not an option.

'If only I had Charles's mutation,' she thought, biting her bottom lip. 'Then I could just read someone's mind who knew the way. Hell,' she snorted, 'I could've just called out to Charles himself and asked him where he was.'

She blinked and thought about that again. A smack resounded through the hall as she smacked her hand to her forehead and groaned. "Why didn't I think of that sooner?!" Maybe he could hear her anyway, if she called out to him. It was worth a try at least, so she closed her eyes and focused as hard as she could on the telepathic Brit. "I hope this works." She mumbled and tried calling out his name mentally.

'Charles?' She waited for a moment and tried again after the answering silence. 'Charles! Can you hear me?' She paused again, praying to any deity listening that he would hear her. Another minuet passed without reply, though and the empath sighed. 'Gods I feel so stupid,' she cringed. The girl decided to try one more time, just in case. 'Hey! Charles, if you can hear me, I could use some help, please!'

'Skylar?' A deep, British accented voice sounded in her mind, and the brunette practically jumped out of her skin.

'Oh thank the gods!' She thought, 'I thought was never going to reach you!' Skylar said mentally while she pumped her fist in the air and jumped up and down.

'Are you alright? What's wrong?' Charles's concerned voice washed over her thoughts and she stopped celebrating. A blush bloomed across her face and she hung her head.

'Yeah, I'm fine, I just, um,' she laughed nervously, 'I'm kind of lost, actually.' Before Charles could respond, she quickly explained. 'I just wanted to ask you some questions- about what's going on, you know? So, I left the room and tried to find you, but, well… I have no clue where I am, and I'm pretty sure I've been walking in circles for a while now.' Skylar could feel her face getting hotter as her blush darkened. She must sound like such and idiot.

'You don't sound like and idiot, Skylar,' Charles said, 'You were only curious.' Her blush only intensified at that. 'Alright, I'm coming to you, just stay where you are.'

'Thank you, Charles.' He said and Skylar could practically feel his grin, 'And I'm sorry for all the trouble I'm causing.'

"It's no trouble. I wanted an excuse to leave the room I was in anyway.' She wondered what he had been doing to warrant such a feeling. 'Just a meeting.' He chuckled softly, 'I was bored is all.'

'Oh, sorry?' Skylar responded, 'Or, you're welcome, I guess.' She heard his answering laughter both in her mind and aloud as Charles walked around the corner.

"Yes, thank you," he said, still laughing. Skylar smiled at the sound and the feeling of his amusement. "And to be fair, you were fairly close to where I was." He motioned vaguely down the hall he had come from.

"By total accident, though," Skylar rolled her eyes. "Honestly this was just an incredibly stupid idea. She ran a hand through her hair and looked at the floor. "I just wanted some answers and I couldn't be patient."

Charles leaned against the wall on the other side of the hallway facing Skylar. He crossed his arms and smiled, "Well ask your questions, love, and I'll see if I can't give you a few answers to make up for it." He gave her a charmingly reassuring smile and Skylar couldn't hep but smile back. He was just adorable.

The two had spent well over two hours in the empty halls, just talking. Eventually, they had both slid down the walls to sit comfortably. Skylar had pulled her legs up to hug them to her chest while Charles had sprawled out. At times, they'd gotten distracted and left the topic of Shaw behind.

Skylar had learned about how Charles and Raven met and how he'd come to be involved in all this mess in the first place. In turn, she'd told charles about her life on the run from people who hated her for her powers, the constant moving from town to town, and the time she spent simply reading all she could in the libraries. They'd simply enjoyed each other's company for a good hour before Skylar got serious yet again.

"So, where do we go from here, Charles?" She rested her head on her knees and looked at him through her bangs. "I mean, what's our next move against, Shaw?"

The telepath sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "In the meeting I was in, we had been discussing that. Basically, we have a lead on him out of the country that Erik, Moira, and I are going to track down tomorrow."

Skylar sat up a bit straighter, "Why only the three of you?" She raised one eyebrow, "Shouldn't you employ some of the help you spent weeks tracking down and recruiting?"

"It's too soon to get the seven of you involved, Skylar." Charles shook his head, moving to sit Indian Style. "We'd only be putting you in harm's way- besides," he shrugged, "It shouldn't be too hard for Erik and I alone."

Skylar hummed skeptically, "Why would we be in any more danger than the two of you?" She asked, shifting to get a tighter grip on her legs. She didn't see why the telepath felt the need to leave her and the others out of this. "I mean, we all signed up for just that, didn't we?"

"You're just not ready," Charles said forcefully, frowning at the floor. "I'm not bringing any of you anywhere until you get some training and more control over your powers." He looked up and met Skylar's eyes, their two different shades of blue locking together. "I don't want any of you getting hurt, love."

The empath felt sincerity and concern rolling off of him in waves, so she raised her hands, palms out and shrugged. "Alright, I won't push the topic anymore." She hugged her legs again, "Just...be careful, ok? I don't want you getting hurt either, Charles." She gave him a gentle smile and he returned it, flashing his perfect, white teeth.

"I'll try," he chuckled. Suddenly his expression changed and he sighed. "It seems we've been gone too long." He got to his feet, stretching out his joints, "They're looking for the both of us now." Skylar quickly stood up as well and popped her back.

"I should probably go back to the Time-Out Zone, then." She smirked and rolled her eyes. Charles laughed and held out one arm.

"Shall I escort you back to your chambers?" He gave her another incredible smile and Skylar blushed before taking his arm.

"I would be honoured to have you as and escort, Mr. Xavier," she replied mimicking his posh accent. He let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back.

"That was quite good, actually," he said as the two walked down the corridors. Skylar mock-bowed and giggled.

"I try." They came up on the double doors to her room quickly and Skylar pouted. "I didn't make it very far, did I?" Charles just shrugged and stepped back. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor.

"Well, I'll likely not see you again before I leave," he looked up and shrugged, "Early flight and all."

"Oh, ok," Skylar said quietly, putting her hands behind her back and rocking slightly on her feet. "Well, good luck- with the lead, I mean." She looked to the floor as well. "And...Remember what I said, about being careful." She looked up and met his eyes long enough to smile softly.

"I will," he opened the door for her, "Have a good night, then."

"You too, Charles," Skylar waved quickly and slipped inside the room. As soon as the door shut behind her she was bombarded with questions from everyone. "Whoa!" She held up her hands and took a step back, "Hey guys!"

"You were gone for forever!"

"Where did you go?"

"Did you get any answers?"

"Guys! Guys!" Skylar laughed and quieted everyone, "Give me a second to breathe and I promise to tell you everything!" Instantly, everyone pulled her to the couch and sat around her to listen. "Ok, ok. Let's see- basically, I got lost.."

 **A/N: Okie dokie, there's that. Lemme know what you thought- the good, the bad, it's all appreciated. The next instalment should be up soon, I just have to edit it a bit before I post it, so maybe tomorrow? No promises, though. -Love RGIG**


	4. Chapter 4

CH. 4 (WARNINGS: CURSING, MILD VIOLENCE)

A/N: Yo. I don't have much to say, so enjoy!- Love RGIG

The morning that Charles, Erik, and Moira left to chase the lead on Shaw started out well. Skylar had awoken to the soft light of early morning streaming in the window and stretched. An agent had shown them all to a room with bunk beds set up for them to sleep on last night, and the mattresses were surprisingly comfortable.

Feeling rested and energized, Skylar had gotten up and cleaned up in the attached bathroom. The brunette pulled some comfortable black shorts and a dark blue tank top out of her bag- Charles and Erik had agreed to let her get a few things from home before they left for the CIA building- and dressed quietly. The others in the room slept peacefully as she snuck out and padded barefoot down the halls back to the lounge.

The majority of her morning was spent meditating in front of the open window in the lounge. Skylar often had to meditate to clear her mind of other people's emotions, and her 'mental exercises', as she called them, stretched her ability to block out negative emotions from her mind. She'd been having migraines for a few days now, and that was usually a sign that she needed to clear her mind to relieve pressure.

By the time Sean, Alex, and Angel walked into the room, Skylar was finished with her routine. She stretched out comfortably on one of the couches and she and Alex talked about his army experiences. Angel joined them a while later and she told them about her job as an 'exotic dancer'. The three of them talked until the rest of their friends filled into the room and everyone chatted for a bit.

By the early afternoon, they were split in the room. Sean, Alex and, Darwin at the pinball machine and Raven, Angle, Hank, and Skylar talking by the seating area. Skylar's group had taken on a more sombre tone, as they all gave a few incidents when they had been running from humans who were afraid of them, or were angry with them for being different. And, almost as if they had sensed the heavy topic, two men from the CIA passed outside of the window beside the mutants.

One tapped on the other and pointed at Angel with a grin. The other, shorter man laughed and waved, getting everyone's attention. "Hey!" He shouted to Angel, "Hey take it off!" He and his friend cheered and laughed.

The other man held up his hands, "Yeah come on, give us a little," he made flapping noises with his mouth and moved his arms like wings. The two agents laughed cruelly and Hank stood up.

"Hey, there we go! Let us see the feet!" Hank waved and shut the blinds quickly, and scowl on his face. Skylar's jaw clenched and she could feel her hands start to shake in anger.

"How dare they," she growled, "We're here to help them!"

"They're just stupid boys," Raven said, putting a hand on Angel's knee, "Don't pay any attention to them."

"Boys being stupid, i can handle. I prefer the way guys stare at me with my clothes off to the way these stare at me with them on." Angel said with a quiet, hurt tone. Skylar turned to her and felt her anger flare again.

She opened her mouth to comfort Angel but a faint thud made her pause. She looked up at the ceiling. "What was-" Another thud cut her off, this one louder than the last. Then there were two more and Skylar and Hank stood. Hank turned to the boys at the other side of the room, checking if they'd heard it, too. Skylar slowly walked to the window, suddenly feeling anxiety, fear, and shock hit her over and over in brief flashes. "Something's wrong."

She reached out and opened the blinds just in time to see a man fall from the sky and hit the ground. Skylar screamed as she felt his fear snuff out, replaced by pain for less than a second. He was dead. And then two more hit the ground a few yards away. Everyone cried out, fear and confusion enveloped Skylar and she felt the world slow down as her adrenaline started pumping. She turned to the window across the room and saw a tornado take out Cerebro almost in slow motion. Then Darwin said something about getting out of here and the world snapped back into real time.

Skylar quickly started for the double doors, shouting for the others to follow her. Darwin ushered the others out of the room and they all ran down the hall. They quickly ran into two guards, who stopped them.

"What are you doing?!" They shouted, blocking their way, "Get back in there!"

"We can help!" Alex shouted just before the building shook with the force of an explosion.

"Go!" Skylar turned and ran back the way they came, everyone followed and they dove back into the room. The windows were shattering and a dark haired man stepped through it.

Raven screamed and pushed everyone to the other window but another man, with red skin and a pointed tail was suddenly in their way in a puff of smoke. The group collectively backed to the middle of the room and they all stopped when the sound of gun shots rang out behind the double doors.

"No! No, please! Look, the freaks are in there!" A man's, scared voice shouted, "Just let us normal people go!" Skylar could feel everyone in the room collectively lose hope and feel hurt at the words. A moment later two screams echoed down the halls and the door swung open.

A tall, thin man walked in. He had a strangely shaped, silver helmet on his head and it caught the light as he looked around the room. "The telepath isn't here?" He asked, looking to the red mutant on his right. "Well, at least I can take this silly thing off." He smiled at the group and took off the helmet, shaking out his hair. "Hello, my name is Sebastian Shaw," he said, talking to them as a whole, "And we are not here to hurt you."

Skylar scoffed, "Really? All the dead men outside might disagree." She snapped, anger coursing through her. Darwin and Alex both put a hand on her shoulders and kept a tight grip on her, almost like they were restraining her.

Shaw shrugged and met her eyes. "They weren't like you." She took a step forward and gestured to all of the people in the room, "We are different- better than them. We're here to offer you a chance to join us. Of course," he paused and locked eyes with Skylar, "You could always stay here. Where they keep you locked in this room, mocking you, hating you…" His eyes roamed over the room, trying to connect with everyone. "Or you could come with us and live like Kings," he looked to Angel, "and Queens."

There was a moment of utter silence, and then Angel moved. She stepped around Sean and Raven and slowly walked across the room to stand by Shaw. "No, Angel?" Raven asked, her voice breaking.

"Are you kidding me?" Sean asked, his tone soft and disbelieving.

"We don't belong here," Angel said, tears in her eyes, "And that's nothing to be ashamed of." Her eyes searched each of them, looking for someone to come with her, but no one else moved.

"No one else?" Shaw asked, waiting for a moment before he shrugged, "Alright, just know, that if you aren't with us...You're against us." He lead Angel out of the window with the red mutant and the dark haired one followed them all as well, and they lined up in the courtyard.

Behind her, Skylar heard Darwin whisper something about, "When I say-" and then he pushed Alex to the side and walked around the empath.

"Wait!" He called after Shaw, following them outside, "I'm coming with you!"

Sean and Hank both called after their friend and tried to go after him. Skylar felt both Darwin and Alex tense in anticipation and she knew they had something planned. The brunette subtly took a hold of the two protesting boys' shirts and held them back as best she could. "Shh, wait." She hissed and they were instantly silent.

"So what can you do?" Shaw asked Darwin and the dark skinned boy stared him down.

"I adapt to survive." He said, his voice cold and Shaw nodded. Darwin grabbed Angel's hand and pulled her behind him, his body morphing into a hard, rock-like texture. "Alex, now!" He shouted, covering the girl.

Alex ran forward and shot out two disks of his destructive energy at Shaw. However, instead of being hurt, Shaw's body moved with the energy and absorbed it. The man cracked his neck after it was gone.

"Ah, thank you for that," Shaw smirked and walked up to Darwin. He leaned in and said, "Adapt to this." He held up a small ball of what looked like Alex's energy and Skylar gasped. Before the man could do anything with his power, Skylar ran forward and focused on the space just in front of Shaw.

She held up both hands and her they glowed with black flames as a thin sheet of black energy formed on Shaw's chest and pushed him back a few steps. "Darwin get over here!" She screamed and moved her left hand to coat his arm in black and pull him quickly over to her. He stumbled to a stop by her side.

"Impressive," Shaw said, straightening his jacket and looked at the red man by his side. "Azazel, why don't you show her how amazing you are? Bring her to me."

In a second, Azazel had disappeared and reappeared in a puff of smoke directly in front of Skylar. His long tail whipped around and curled around the girl's throat. She was lifted off of her feet and suddenly they were both in front of Shaw. She clawed with her hands at the constricting tail that was cutting off her airways. Shaw smiled and held up the ball of energy he still held in his hand.

"I should use this on you, then." He pulled his arm back to slam it into her stomach and Skylar's eyes rolled back in her head as her hands glowed. Just before the energy connected with her abdomen, it was coated in a thick, black energy. The force of Shaw's punch, though threw the telekinetic out of Azazel's hold. She thudded to the ground on her back and slid a few feet, gasping for air. She struggled to steady her hands over the black energy coated ball to keep her hold on it.

"Nyx!" She heard Raven scream her name and there were several pairs of feet pounding against the ground towards her. Two pairs of hands reached down and helped her stand. Skylar coughed and spit a glob of blood out of her mouth, licking her cheek where she had bit clean through it.

"Are you ok?" That was Hank, he and Sean had helped her up apparently. Skylar's head spun and she nodded sluggishly as she wheezed air into her lungs.

"Fine- winded." She gasped and looked up at Shaw's group. Shaw's eye twitched slightly when he saw that she had stopped his attack yet again. He turned to Azazel again, but before he could utter a word, Skylar threw the ball she held at the teleporter. She let her own energy drop, though, and Shaw's power clipped his shoulder before making a small crater in the ground behind him.

"Nice!" Sean hissed and Skylar smiled. She was better at this than she thought she would be. Of course, that thought died as Shaw motioned for the dark haired man to go after them. A small tornado spun to life in his hand and he threw his palm out at the brunette girl. "Shit!" Sean said and Skylar pushed both him and Hank away from her.

She put her hands up to shield them, but she ran out of time. The wind tunnel smacked into her and she flew back into the side of the building. The wind was knocked out of her again and her skull hit the wall with a thunk. Instant migraine, complete with blurry and blotted vision. Skylar slid down the wall and crumpled on the ground with a groan.

"Well this has been fun," Shaw said loudly to the group of younger mutants as everyone rushed to Skylar again. They helped her sit up while Azazel prepared to teleport all of his colleagues. Shaw held up his hand, letting a massive energy collect there. "A parting gift for you." He threw it lightly into the air just as they all disappeared in a puff of smoke and Darwin dove to cover as many people as he could from the coming blast.

Skylar knew that it wouldn't be enough, though, so she held up both hands and closed her eyes. A blinding flash accompanied the loudest boom Skylar had ever heard and then everything was black. Skylar's arms shook as her shield was bombardment outside and she could hear her friends ask what was happening. They called out to everyone.

"Is everyone ok?"

"Is everyone here?"

"What's going on?"

"I've...got a field around...us," Skylar coughed out, her voice strained as the barrage outside continued. "I don't know what he...left behind-" she grunted as something heavy smashed against the field to her left- part of the building maybe, "but..it's still going, or the building is falling…" The girl blinked and her head drooped as her arms shook violently with the effort of holding back whatever was happening outside. Finally, it was over. The moment Skylar felt the force pushing against her stop, her arms fell and she landed face first in the dirt below her.

She felt her energy dissipate and sighed, coughing when she got dirt in her nose and mouth. She closed her eyes and felt three pairs of hands flipping her onto her back. Her head was lifted up and lain back down on someone's lap. She looked up to see Raven leaning over her, crying.

"Oh my god," she sobbed, pushing Skylar's hair out her face, "Are you ok?"

Everyone was leaning over her and Skylar smiled. 'So this is what having friends is like.' She thought, 'It's nice.' She blinked black spots out of her eyes and coughed again, "I'm peachy." Raven laughed, almost hysterical, and Skylar frowned, "Hey, Raven, I don't want you to freak out...but I'm going to pass out now." The blonde laughed again and Skylar smiled as she felt her body get heavy and her world go dark. 'Good job, Steele.' She mentally patted herself on the back just before she let the darkness lull her to sleep.

A/N: Right-o. Finally got some action in this chapter! This one was super fun to write, so lemme know what you thought of it. I plan to have the next chapter up within the next three days. -Love RGIG


	5. Chapter 5

CH. 5 **(WARNINGS: CURSING)**

Before the car even came to a full stop, Charles had the door open and was running at a full sprint. "Raven!"

"Charles!" Raven ran to meet him with a hug.

"Are you alright?" Charles brushed the girl's blonde hair away from her face, checking for injuries. "I'm so sorry, I never should have left you alone."

"I'm fine, Charles," Raven assured him, stepping back from the hug.

"Good, good." Charles sighed and looked to the rest of the younger mutants. Skylar wasn't with them, and he'd been told earlier that she was receiving medical attention elsewhere. "I've made arrangements for you all to go back home."

"We're not going home," Alex said, looking up from the ground with a scowl on his face.

"What?" Charles's head snapped around to look at the younger man in disbelief. Erik and Moira caught up at that moment and they stopped to listen to the conversation.

"He's not going back to prison," Sean spoke up for his friend.

"Did you see what they did to Nyx?" Alex asked hotly, standing with his fists clenched angrily. "We can't just let Shaw get away with that!"

"Oh no," Charles shook his head, "It's too dangerous for you to go after him."

"Nyx is our friend, Charles." Raven said softly, "She got hurt protecting us."

"And we can hurt them back for what they've done to her." Erik said, his voice carrying over the group firmly. Charles looked back at his friend with an exasperated expression.

"Erik, a word, please." Charles led Erik a few yards away from the group. "What are you doing?" His words were sharp.

"Not giving up on this, Charles!" Erik shot back, "Shaw has his army, we need ours." Erik put his hand on Charles's shoulder and locked eyes with the shorter man, "Skylar fought for this. Don't let that be in vain, my friend."

Charles sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Alright, alright." He turned back to the group behind him, "We'll all need to train, yes?" He called out and they shot back with the affirmative.

"Well we can't stay here," Hank threw in for the first time. "Even if we can rebuild, it's not safe. We have nowhere to go."

"Yes we do," Charles shook his head, "I've got accommodations for all of us."

"And Nyx?" Darwin asked, crossing his arms, "She needs to be with us."

Charles smiled. Skylar had made quite the impact with the others it seemed. She was truly remarkable. "Yes, Skylar will come with us. We couldn't leave one of our own behind, now could we?"

Blue eyes opened slowly only to be quickly shut against the harsh, white light in the room. Skylar groaned at the migraine pounding behind her eyes and instantly regretted that decision. Her throat ached almost worst than her head and the groan had aggravated the pain. 'Gods, what happened to me?'

She slowly opened her eyes again, looking to the side so as not to be blinded. A light blue bedspread was the first thing she saw. She turned her head, careful of her neck, and looked down at her body. She was lying on a large bed, tucked under a thin sheet up to her chest. Her arms were resting on top of the sheet, and one had an IV connected to it. The other arm was by her side, and her hand was being held gently by someone sleeping in a chair at her bedside.

The empath looked at the head of dark brown hair curiously for a long moment. Her mind was still fuzzy from sleep and she didn't have the energy to really be surprised by this person's presence. She decided to just let the person sleep and looked around the room as best as she could. The ceiling above her was made of a dark wood and the walls had a light, cream coloured wallpaper. The only furniture in the room seemed to be the bed she was lying on and a chest of drawers to her left next to an empty book shelf.

Skylar didn't remember this room at all. She looked back to the person beside her. 'Where am I? Who is that?' Her inner voice asked, as her mind cleared slightly. She squinted her eyes as she looked at the sleeping brunette, trying to place what was so familiar about them.

" _My name is Charles Xavier, and this is my friend and colleague, Erik Lehnsherr. We'd like to talk with you for a few minutes, if that's alright."_

" _Charles and I are gathering a group of mutants, and we would like you to join us."_

" _How about Nyx?"_

" _You're just not ready! I'm not bringing any of you anywhere until you get some training and more control over your powers. I don't want any of you getting hurt, love."_

" _Azazel, why don't you show her how amazing you are? Bring her to me."_

Skylar gasped as the memories came flooding back into her mind. She closed her eyes against the flashes and her body tensed up as her migraine flared.

"Mmm," Charles groaned and sat up, woken by his hand being crushed as Skylar tried to ward off the pain in her mind. "Skylar, love?" Charles blinked the sleep from his eyes as he took in the girl's tense posture. He gently placed one hand over her forehead and closed his eyes.

'Calm down, love, I've got you.' He spoke quietly into her mind as he forced her pain away. Skylar sighed in relief as her body relaxed against the soft bed once more.

"Charles?" She opened her eyes again, "What...Where..?" She struggled to complete her questions and the telepath chuckled softly.

"Don't worry, everything is fine." He reassured her, "You're at my home at the moment. The others are here as well, and they are all very anxious to see you. You've been asleep for nearly three days." His face fell and he gently smoothed Skylar's brunette hair away from her face. "I'm so sorry, love. I should have been there to protect all of you." He looked away from her and bit his lip.

Skylar frowned and squeezed the hand that she was still holding, "Hey, you didn't know that bastard would show up." Her voice was hoarse but her words were firm and she locked eyes with Charles when he turned back to her. "You did what you thought was best." She gave him a smile and squeezed his hand again. They simply watched each other for a moment as a peaceful feeling washed over the both of them.

The moment was ruined, though, when Skylar's stomach let out an incredibly loud growl. The empath blushed and looked down at her stomach. "I think I swallowed a bear or something." She said and Charles laughed.

"I'll go fetch you something to eat," he stood and let go of her hand. They both frowned at the cold feeling the lack of contact left them with, but Skylar nodded anyway.

"Thank you, Charles." She said and the Brit gave her a charming smile.

"Of course, love." He moved to the door, "I'll be back soon." He slipped out into the hallway and closed the heavy wooden door behind him softly. He turned to head to the kitchen but jumped when he saw Erik leaning against the wall beside him. "Good lord, Erik!" He put a hand over his heart and took and deep breath.

"That was touching, Charles." Erik smirked, motioning with his chin at the room the telepath had just left. "When should I expect the wedding invitaion?"

Charles spluttered, taking a step back, "Wedding- what? I-I don't- I mean, we don't," he stopped and took another breath. "I don't know what you mean, Erik." He said, the blush spreading over his cheeks gave him away, however.

The older man laughed, patting his friend's shoulder, "Oh, my friend, you are an awful liar." He walked past him and called over his shoulder, "I should hope to be your best man, Charles!" As Erik turned the corner, Charles could still hear his laughter echoing down the hall. The brunette could feel his face heating up as his blush darkened.

Sure, he liked Skylar- she was an amazing individual. Very intelligent, funny, kind, but he liked her as a teammate, a friend...right? Charles shook his head at himself and started walking to the kitchen. 'Come on, Xavier,' Charles chided himself mentally, 'You can't loose focus! Shaw is the main priority at the moment. You don't have time to be thinking of Skylar. With her beautiful, blue eyes and her stunning smile- No!' Charles stopped and slapped a hand to his forehead. 'Damnit, Erik!'

 **A/N: Yeah I didn't really love that chapter. It felt awkward to write and I'm sure it came out that way. But, it was part of my original plan and I just couldn't bring myself to trash it. Sorry if you hated it! If you loved it, then that's awesome! lemme know which it is? Next chapter just needs to be looked over one more time, and then I will post it! (So probs tomorrow)- Love RGIG**


	6. Chapter 6

CH. 6 **(WARNINGS: Cursing? I don't even think there is any in this chapter, actually.)**

The next day, Skylar was feeling abundantly better. Her throat still had some severe bruising on the outside, but it no longer hurt to speak and move her neck around normally. Her stomach and back were also bruised, but the pain wasn't enough to keep her in bed any longer. So, the telekinetic girl meet everyone in the kitchen for breakfast, eager to start training.

"Morning, guys!" She said in a cheery voice as she practicality glided into the kitchen. Everyone was already at the table, so she just grabbed a plate and started to pile on the food. After nearly three days of living off an IV, her appetite had grown to that of a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

A round of "Good morning"s were tossed at her from the table and the brunette grinned. It had been a very long time since she'd had anyone to say good morning to. It was nice to have the routine back.

"Are you feeling any better, Nyx?" Darwin asked as the girl took the last open chair between him and Erik.

"Much better, actually," she smiled at him. She took a few bites of her food, almost moaning at the wonderful taste. "Whoever cooked this is a god." She said, closing her eyes and enjoying the food. A few laughs rose from around the table at her enthusiasm.

"Thank you, Skylar." Moira said, smiling gently at the other brunette.

"Mhmm," Skylar nodded, her mouth full. She quickly swallowed and turned to Charles, who sat at the head of the table. "So I'm all better! Can I start training today?" The two of them had talked about her training yesterday, and Charles had said that he would allow her to start training only after her injuries were healed.

"I don't know, Skylar," Charles said, his eyebrows furrowing in thought, "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with letting you exert yourself so much so soon after-"

"Oh come on, Charles!" Raven rolled her eyes, "Skylar needs to train just as much as we do!" The blonde motioned around the table at everyone. "What if you make her wait too long and she's not ready when Shaw makes his move."

"Raven's right, Charles," Skylar nodded her thanks at the other girl. She looked back to the telepath with pleading eyes. After a moment he sighed and smiled.

"Alright, you may being training today." The words had barely left his mouth before Skylar pumped her fist in the air.

"Yes!" She cheered and everyone laughed.

It was just over an hour later that she was standing in a pair of loose, black sweat pants and a sleeveless, light blue top in a large sitting room with Charles and Erik. The three of them had decided it would best to start relatively small, and then move on to larger items. So, here she was, lifting every single piece of furniture in the huge room at once.

They'd started with the small things, of course. Just the comfy chair, and then they added in the coffee table. Next she'd lifted the couch, and then the love seat, and the bookshelf, soon she had the whole room covered in black and floating calmly in the air. The girl turned to Charles and pursed her lips, "I'm not really struggling here, Charles. I need to go bigger if I want to push myself."

The Brit nodded sagely and motioned for her to put all of his furniture back on the carpet. "Alright, I agree. What is the largest object you've ever lifted, love? We need something to work off of."

"Well," Skylar said, sorting through all her memories of using her powers, "As far as I can remember, the largest I've gone is a car, but only for a few seconds." She remembered passing through a parking lot one day when she was younger and wondering if she could lift the heavy automobile. "Honestly, now that I think about it, the middle ground is what I'm good at." She said as the men motioned for her to walk outside with them. "Anything between the size of a book and a car, I'd say is my comfort zone, but anything smaller or larger than that is where it gets tougher."

Erik raised an eyebrow at that, "You have trouble manipulating smaller objects?" He asked and the girl nodded.

"Yeah, it takes more concentration if the thing I want to move is smaller." She shrugged, "I have no clue why, though."

The three of them walked out of the house and onto the expansive lawn. They walked for a while in the direction of the scraggle of trees at the far end of the property. When they'd reached the first layer of trees, Charles stopped and turned to Skylar. "I want you to try to lift one of these trees out of the ground." He said calmly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Skylar raised both her eyebrows at that and looked up at the tree beside her. It was easily taller than a normal house, hell all the trees around them were. "Um...ok?" She said, uncertainty clear in her tone, "I'll give it a try."

The two men took a few steps back, giving her room. She slowly lifted both arms out in front of her, her hands in their signature position to activate her powers. The black, flame-like engery arched around her fingers and she focused her energy on the smallest tree in front of her. Slowly, almost agonizingly so, the black coating crawled up the base of the tree. By the time it had gotten halfway up the trunk, Skylar could already feel her hands trembling. She grit her teeth, though and pushed harder with her power.

Finally, the energy reached the base of the branches and started to coat them and the leaves in black. Her breath was coming quickly now, and the trembling made its way up her arms. As soon as the entire tree had been covered in darkness, she turned her palms toward the sky and started to pull the tree from the ground. The grass and dirt at the base of the trunk cracked and shifted as the tree itself shook. After about thirty seconds, Skylar's arms were shaking violently and sweat rolled down the back of her neck.

The weight was too much, her arms dropped to her sides and she felt her knees go weak as the energy disappeared from the towering tree and from her hands. "I- I can't," she panted, turning to look at Charles and Erik. "I can't move it even a little bit." She frowned at the ground, not wanting to meet either of their gazes.

"Charles," Erik said quietly, "Perhaps you should do for her, what you did for me the other day." Skylar looked up at that and saw Erik giving Charles a pointed look. Charles nodded slowly.

"Yes, that might help," he looked to the confused brunette and straighten his posture. "You see, Skylar, I believe that we all draw on a certain emotion to activate our mutations. I also believe that clearity and strength come from the middle ground between rage and serenity."

"I guess that makes sense," she nodded, leaning against a larger tree to her right and crossing her arms. "The balance of emotions gives you the angle to use both sides of the spectrum."

Charles nodded and smiled, "Exactly." He motioned towards his head, "I could help, if you don't mind me poking around in your mind…?" He raised one eyebrow and Skylar bit her lip.

She trusted Charles, but...she didn't know if she wanted to go digging up old memories. She looked at the grass between her feet for a moment and chewed her lip nervously. When she looked back up at Charles he was waiting patiently for her to decide while Erik leaned against a tree a few feet away. Charles gave her a reassuring smile and she closed her eyes, nodding quickly. She needed to do this to get better.

"Ok, go ahead." She sighed and when her eyes opened again, Charles was placing two fingers against his temple and closing his eyes. As soon as his eyes shut, Skylar's world was thrown into darkness and she watched as flashes of her own memories raced around her.

Suddenly, she was standing in a small, dusty room with rotting floorboards and peeling paint. Fading sunlight came in from the only window in the room, casting a hazy light over two small beds with sewn and patched quilts covering them. Skylar's breath hitched and her eyes welled up with tears. She knew where she was, and she knew exactly what she would see if she turned around. Slowly, almost as if they had a mind of their own, her feet moved to turned her body in the opposite direction.

Allen. The tears in her eyes spilled over and rolled down her cheeks as she took in the sight of her brother. He looked exactly the same as he had seventeen years ago, when Skylar saw him for the last time. His curly, dark brown hair falling into his soft, hazel eyes. A cheeky grin on his face as he looked down at a six year old Skylar.

"Come on, sis," Skylar bit back a sob at the sound of his voice. Allen knelt down to be eye level with his younger sister, who had been crying until then, "It doesn't matter what they say!" He reached up and wiped away the young girl's tears, "I love you, and I know that you're not a freak. We're just cooler than everybody else, and they're just jealous, yeah?"

The younger Skylar giggled and hugged her brother, "I love you too, bubba."

The Skylar who stood apart from the scene as it played before her closed her eyes and turned away from them. She hugged her stomach and let out a heart wrenching sob because she knew what came next. Before she had to see it happen again, though, she was back in the yard with Charles and Erik.

"I'm sorry, love," Charles said, running to her and wrapping his arms around the sobbing girl. He had worry and fear radiating off of him, and Skylar knew that he hadn't expected her to burst into tears this way. Skylar couldn't stop, though.

"They killed him, Charles." She sobbed into his chest, wrapping her arms around him and holding on for dear life. "They set fire to the orphanage to kill us," she said, unable to stop telling the awful story. The words tumbled from her lips, ripped from her heart by the sobs. "He- he tried to get us out, but the stairs caved in and…" She struggled to breathe and Charles clutched her tighter to him. "He saved me, Charles. He saved me and he died- I could _feel_ him die. I _felt_ him burn." Her powers had forced her to feel Allen's pain as he died a few yards away from her. She could never forget that pain.

Skylar's knees gave out and she and Charles sunk to the ground, locked in each other's arms. He ran his hand through her hair, "Shh, love, shhh." He rocked them slightly and Skylar felt his chest hitch as he cried for her pain. Her shoulder ached and she reached up, clutching in her with eyes screwed shut, Charles pulled back from their embrace, worried. "Skylar, what's wrong?"

The sobbing girl couldn't answer him as her form shook with pain that was both emotional an physical. The man reached up to gently pry her fingers away from her shoulder and pull the edge of her shirt back, to see if she was hurt. He gasped at the large burn mark that covered her shoulder blade. The scar was old, though, and he assumed that the pain Skylar was feeling was more from the memory than from any physical pain.

Skylar took in deep gulps of air, trying to calm herself down. Her chest was tight, and she could hear how loud she was being. She didn't want to cry anymore- not now. She put her hands over her face and wiped the tears away faster than they could fall. A few moments later, she stopped sobbing, leaving only a hitch in her breath and tear tracks on her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I-I...It's just hard to think about." She didn't look up from the ground, afraid to meet Charles's eyes. "I didn't mean to mess this up so badly…"

"No, no, love," Charles's voice was soft and he placed his hand under Skylar's chin, gently lifting her gaze up to meet his. "You don't have to be sorry. You never have to be sorry for the way you feel." Skylar nodded and she took another slow, deep breath.

"Can...Can I try again?" She asked, "I want to do this right."

An hour later found Skylar holding a very large tree ten feet off the ground with a huge smile on her face as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

 **A/N: This chapter was much more fun to write than the last one. lemme know if it was fun to read? Boring? (I was going for heart wrenching but whateves.)- Love RGIG**


	7. Chapter 7

CH. 7 **(WARNINGS: ? Cursing? Cuddles? Jesus mention? Idek guys)**

 **A/N: (Apology Ahead) So so sorry this took so long. I usually don't post a chapter until the next one at least has a rough draft, but...I fucked up? My original 9 chapter plan has crumbled due to the fact that I just** _ **could not fucking write the next chapter.**_ **It was like my muse went on vacay or something. So, I posted everything I had while I tried to force a square peg into a round hole. But, I've finally just scrapped that chap idea (I was sooooo sad, though), and I wrote this one. Tl;dr version: I'm a hoe. Sorry. Pleases enjoy this.- Love RGIG**

One week. That was all the time they were allowed to train, apparently. The missile crisis wouldn't wait any longer and with the tensions running so high in Cuba, Shaw would want to be there personally. So, they were all going to Cuba tomorrow to try and stop the damn megalomaniac. They'd all gone to their rooms early, hoping to get some good rest before the inevitable fighting tomorrow.

Skylar had been the one to suggest it, actually. She had felt everyone's tension and had ushered them all off to bed for some good sleep- ever the Mom Friend™. However, she couldn't seem to follow her own advice. She'd been lying in her bed, under the warm, black duvet Charles had fished out of a linen closet for her for the past three hours, wide awake. She'd already studied the ceiling so much that she would probably remember the wood pattern for he rest of her life.

After the ceiling became boring, she'd tried to meditate to clear her mind. That didn't last long. Every time she'd tried to clear her mind, more thoughts had just rushed in to fill the space left by the old ones. Eventually she had simply accepted her fate of a sleepless night and just let her thoughts run their course. The brunette was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth over all the possible (horrible) outcomes of tomorrow when a thought that wasn't her own interrupted.

'Sorry to intrude, love,' a smooth, posh voice said, 'But are you alright? Your thoughts are rather loud, and it is rather late.'

Skylar's face flushed a dark red at the sound of Charles's voice in her mind. 'Gods, I'm sorry, Charles!' She replied hastily, covering her face with her hands even though no one was around to see her blush. 'I didn't mean to wake you. I'll try to...think quieter thoughts?' She hesitated on the last of her reply, unsure of how she would go about doing just that. The low chuckle that washed over her mind let her know Charles had caught the hesitation as well.

'No worries, I was awake anyway.' Skylar heard a soft sigh, so quiet it was almost as if she wasn't ment the actually hear it. 'It seems that sleep is avoiding me tonight.' The empath didn't need her powers to feel the resigned exhaustion in her friend's (mental?) voice.

'Ahh, so I'm not the only one, then.' The girl sat up in her bed, placing a pillow behind her back and pulling another in front of her to hug to her chest. 'My brain just won't shut up tonight.' She smiled and rolled her eyes, 'It's a conspiracy- my brain wants me to fall asleep during all the exciting stuff tomorrow. My brain is secretly a double agent for Shaw.' Her 'voice' had lowered to a whisper, as if she was sharing a secret.

Charles's laughter was loud and full of humour. The sound made Skylar smile and she hugged her pillow a bit closer to her chest, she'd loved to hear Charles's laugh from the very first time she'd heard the amazing sound. The Brit calmed himself and his laughter died out with a last chuckle, 'In that case, my brain should be added to the double agent list. It's being rather cruel at the moment.'

'Yeah, lying awake all night while everyone else sleeps is the worst.' Skylar nodded, leaning back on her head board. 'It's peaceful sometimes, but mostly it's just really...lonely.' She frowned slightly at that, a few memories of her many years alone flashed past her forethought.

'You would like some company then, love?' Charles asked just a knock on her door rang out in the room. The telekinetic girl shot up from the bed quickly at the sound, nearly falling in her haste to stand. The heavy wood opened and Charles's head poked in through the crack. "Sorry, I didn't me to startle you." He chuckled, catching sight of Skylar's messy hair and surprised expression.

The girl clutched at her chest over her heart and took a deep, dramatic breath, "Gods, Charles," she said breathlessly, "I nearly had a heart attack!" She closed her eyes and fell back onto her bed sideways, letting out a sigh. She heard the door close and a moment later the bed dipped on the other side. She tilted her head back to look at Charles upside down. He was sat awkwardly on the very edge of her bed, legs crossed and hands in his lap.

Skylar smiled as she took in the sight of the slightly awkward professor. He was dressed in a loose pair of grey sweatpants and a white T-shirt. His dark hair was pressed on one side, as if he'd been lying on his side trying to sleep. Coupled with the shy and slightly drowsy expression on his face Skylar could only describe him as adorable. Immediately after thinking it, though, she blushed a dark red and sat up, looking at the wall on the other side of the room. Hopefully he hadn't been reading her mind just then...that might be…? Skylar couldn't think of the appropriate words at the moment.

"What's wrong?" The telepath's concerned voice broke the girl out of her thoughts. She turned back around and shook her head with a smile.

"Nothing, just thinking…" She let the sentence trail off, shrugging. Charles just nodded his understanding. The room was silent for a moment before Skylar moved to lean against her headboard again, patting the mattress beside her. Charles smiled and moved to lean against the dark stained wood as well, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"So…" The Brit said, his voice quiet. He turned to look at the girl beside him with a half hearted smile, "How do you feel? About tomorrow, I mean?"

Skylar frowned and looked into his bright blue eyes, searching for...she didn't know what she was looking for, actually. "I'm not sure." She sighed eventually, looking down at the dark duvet over her light blue sheets. For the first time she noticed the colour matched Charles's eyes almost perfectly. "I mean, we _can't_ lose. Shaw must be stopped- for the sake of the whole world…"

"However?" Charles asked when she stopped. Skylar looked back to him, and shrugged yet again.

"However, I'm terrified we won't be able to do it." Her voice was barely a whisper, "I believe in everyone here, of course," she motioned vaguely around them, referring to the others in the mansion, "But...what if this one week wasn't enough?"

Charles nodded, understanding her concerns. He shifted closer to the girl, throwing an arm around her small shoulders and pulling her closer. He laid a soft kiss to the top of her head and sighed, "I know what you mean." He leaned his head back on the headboard and closed his eyes, "We must have hope, Skylar. Hope that everything will work out for the best, and that we will be enough."

A comfortable silence fell over the two for a long time. They both took comfort from the other's presence as worry, doubt, determination, and hope warred inside of them. Thoughts of tomorrow, and of the more distant future swarmed their minds and eventually, Skylar couldn't dwell on it anymore without some kind of outburst.

So, she shifted in the bed, pulling the covers up and scooting down until she was almost lying flat. She tugged on Charles's shirt until he got the picture and shifted to lie down as well. The empath let Charles lie on his back and used his chest as a pillow. The man's arm wrapped around her to rest on her shoulder and she smiled. The moment was so peaceful, she didn't want to ruin it with thoughts of tomorrow.

"Charlie?" She spoke, her voice quiet, trying not to break the calm atmosphere. "Chuck?"

"...Yes?" Skylar could practically see him raising an eyebrow at the variations of his name. She laughed, but didn't look up at him.

"I'm trying to think of a nickname for you." She said as an explanation. "Oo! I've got it: Chaz!" She giggled at the scoff Charles gave her.

"Why on earth do you think I need a nickname, love?" He asked, his arm curling tighter around her.

"Well, I need something shorter than Mutant Jesus, so-"

"Good lord!" Charles laughed, his voice echoing in the bedroom. Skylar's face broke into a wide grin as his chest shook with laughter. "I'm sorry, 'Mutant Jesus'?"

"Yes, you are our righteous leader." Skylar nodded, and tried to hide another giggle at the look he shot her. She must be getting tired- she normally got weird when she was, so it made since.

"Mhmmm," the dark haired man chuckled again and shook his head, "You're nuts, love." He pulled his free arm up and rested his head on it, looking at the ceiling. He was the picture of calm and relaxed with a lazy smile on his face, and his hand started to subconsciously trace shapes onto Skylar's shoulder and back.

The empath sighed happily and closed her eyes. Charles's calm and tranquil emotions mixed with her own, washing over the suddenly very tired girl. Skylar snuggled her head into Charles's chest, "You betchya, Chaz."

Within minutes, both of them were fast asleep.

The sound of footsteps thudding heavily on the wood above her woke Skylar up, she groaned. It felt like she'd only just gotten to sleep, it couldn't possibly be morning yet. So, she buried her head into her (surprisingly firm) pillow and tried to fall back asleep. Then her pillow moved and she heard _someone else_ groan as well.

Skylar's eyes snapped open and she was sitting up in less than a nanosecond. (Ok, not really, but it was fast.) She released a relieved breath, though, when she saw Charles and the previous night caught up to her. "Oh." A fond smile graced her face as she watched the man on the bed beside her fumble around, looking for the warmth that had suddenly left him. His face scrunched in confusion for just a moment before he cracked open one eye reluctantly and looked around.

The two locked eyes and pink dusted lightly over both their cheeks. "Oh...Good morning." Charles said before a yawn stole his speech from him. Skylar offered him a small smile.

"Good morning." She returned and Charles sat up. They both quickly looked away from each other, trying to hide how their blushes were getting darker.

A full moment of awkward silence passed before Charles cleared his throat and stood from the bed. "Right, well," he motioned towards the door, "We've got lots to do today, so...I'll just...go get ready, then."

Skylar looked up at him, carefully not making eye contact, "Right! Me too- but in here, obviously. I won't go anywhere...just, you know… Here." She cringed as the words left her mouth. She wasn't really fully awake yet, and her brain was too full of thoughts about how amazing Charles looked while he slept to carry on a conversation at the moment.

Thankfully, the man didn't comment and just nodded. He left with a small wave and a shy smile. As soon as the door closed behind him, Skylar flopped back down onto the bed behind her and sighed.

Well that was nice.

 **A/N: Sorry it was shorter than usual, but I just wanted to put something up now instead of making you all wait any more. Anyway, lemme know if it was too mushy? Not mushy enough? Not enough plot? Idk. Have at it.- Love RGIG**


	8. Chapter 8

CH. 8 (WARNINGS: Cursing, Violence, Slightly graphic death)

A/N: Yo! Before we start I just wanna say thank you to everyone who has favourited/followed and reviewed! It makes my day every time I get a notification for this story, and they keep me writing. So, thanks! I hope you enjoy the climax of the story! (Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I didn't have a lot of time to really comb through this chap.)- Love (a grateful) RGIG

As Skylar prepared for the day in her room, she could feel a cloud of tension blanket the entire mansion. Every one of the huge house's residents was nervously awaiting the battle they would have to endure later, and Skylar couldn't help but worry about them all. She'd been alone for almost her whole life, and now that she had finally gotten some friends, they might all die very soon.

'Well it was good while it lasted.' Her inner voice sounded loaded with forced happiness and Skylar only frowned at her own attempt to lighten her mood. The telekinetic girl slipped out of her room and walked briskly down the long hallway that led to the sitting room everyone had agreed to meet in before they left for Cuba. When she stepped into the room, everyone was already there, excluding Hank.

"Morning." She said softly, flinching slightly at the amount of raw emotions slamming into her as soon as she set foot in the room. Everyone returned her greeting with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The brunette caught the very blue eyes of Charles before a bright blush coloured both their faces and they looked away. Skylar caught the smirk Erik tossed at Charles afterwards, though, and spared a moment to wonder what that was about.

"Where is he?" Alex growled out, sounding just as stressed as Skylar felt he was. The blonde turned to Raven- who was showing her blue skin today for some reason.

The shape changer put her hands up and shrugged, "Don't look at me." She said, crossing her arms and looking out a nearby window, "I haven't seen him since last night." She frowned at that and Skylar felt her sadness mix in with the other emotions. Maybe that was the reason behind her appearance. Skylar knew that she and Hank had been trying to create a serum to make themselves look "normal". Personally, Skylar thought that Raven looked amazing in her natural skin.

"Could he still be asleep?" Darwin asked skeptically. Everyone knew it wasn't likely, but nothing is impossible.

"Then let's wake him up." Erik said, scowling as he stood from the chair he had been lounging in. He strode out of the room and Charles quickly jumped up to follow him. The telepath was no doubt worried for Hank's safety if he was asleep. As a group, everyone scrambled after the two men, either being nosy or assuming they'd leave once they collected the scientist.

When Erik opened Hank's door, however, the notion that Hank could be asleep was thrown out the window. His work area was in total disarray. The tables were overturned and all of his equipment was strewn about the the room as if a tornado had crashed through while they weren't looking. In the middle of the room, was a large, black chest marked with an X made of black tape. A piece of paper was sitting on its lid and Charles walked into the room and picked it up.

"Meet me at the hanger. Put on what is in the chest marked X." He read the note and looked at the plain chest in front of him. He opened it quickly, raising an eyebrow at the contents. "It looks like Hank has been busy." He commented and stepped back so everyone else could see.

"Jumpsuits?" Alex asked, looking at the yellow and blue coloured clothing with disdain.

Skylar moved forward and picked one up with Sean's name pinned to the lapple, feeling the material. "It feels heavy duty." She said, searching for one with her name pinned to it. She found it at the bottom of the chest and pulled it all out together, whistling at the outfit.

Her suit didn't look the same as the others did. Where her teammates' suits were yellow, Skylar's was a midnight black. Attached to the shoulders, there was a hood as well. "Why is mine different?" She turned to Charles and the telepath shrugged.

"Hank must have his reasons." He shrugged and motioned for everyone to grab their suits. "Alright, put them on and come to the hangar. We don't have much more time."

Skylar was still staring curiously at Hank's new, blue fur as she boarded the jet behind Erik. He'd shown up mysteriously, showing his new appearance- and a new temper when he nearly choked Erik- just as the last of their group had made it to the hangar. When the newly dubbed Beast caught her looking, however, she quickly dropped her gaze for fear of coming off as rude.

She turned to Banshee instead. The ginger had just buckled in and was leaning his head back against his seat, letting out a long breath. He looked up when the jet started, and shot Skylar a nervous grin when they made eye contact. As the Black Bird took off, the empath looked around at her friends.

Darwin and Alex had their heads bent together, conversing in hushed tones. Charles and Erik were staring at one another silently, most likely having a mental conversation. Finally, Raven was sat across from Skylar, looking at her hands in her lap. Skylar felt so many mixed emotions coming off the girl that she couldn't even pick one out to focus on.

"Hey," the brunette whispered. Raven's head snapped up and she nodded. "You alright?"

"Groovy." Raven replied sarcastically, but she gave her friend a small smile. Skylar smiled back and Raven went back to her thoughts. Skylar closed her eyes and tried to meditate, hoping to clear her mind before they made it to Cuba. She would need it, she could already tell.

A few hours later, Beast's voice coming over her headset pulled her out of her trance. "Ladies and gentlemen, Cuba." He drawled as the plane banked to the left. Skylar looked through the window beside her seat and saw that they were passing over a large expanse of water. Far off to the right, she could see two sets of ships heading towards one another.

"The Russians are almost to the line." Moira said, putting a hand to her headset. "They've ordered their ship to turn around, but it's not responding!"

Skylar turned to watch Charles as the telepath pressed two fingers to his temple, closing his eyes. He opened them again a moment later, a frown on his face. "Azazel has killed all the men onboard the ship." He sat forward in his seat, "Hold on." He closed his eyes again and a few moments later Hank was cursing as the jet rolled suddenly. Outside of the Black Bird, the Russian ship was blown to bits.

The empath clutched to her seat belts tightly and squeezed her eyes shut. The jet finally stopped rolling and smoothed out, and the brunette pressed a hand to her mouth. Her stomach rolled still and she sent out a prayer to any deity that cared. 'Gods, please don't let me hurl right now.'

"A little warning next time, Charles?" Hank called out and Charles chuckled. Skylar cautiously opened her eyes again to see the firey remains of the destroyed ship through the window.

"How- You know what, not important." She rolled her eyes and decided she'd ask what he'd done later. 'If you live to see 'later', that is,' her brain supplied. Ignoring her morbid thoughts, Skylar scanned the water below that she could see. "Where is Shaw?" She asked, straining her eyes to see some clue to his whereabouts.

"He must be using a submarine." Hank called back over the headset. "And obviously we don't have sonar…" He growled and asked Moira if she was getting anything over the sensors.

"Yes we do." Banshee said calmly beside the empath and Skylar turned to look at him. "Yes we do!" He said louder, unbuckling and standing from his seat. Charles and Eric stood from their seats as well. "Beast, open the Bombay doors!" Sean called to the pilot and the floor dropped in front of him. Charles shouted a few things at the redhead, but Skylar couldn't hear them over the sound of air rushing into the cabin.

'He's just going to jump out of the fucking plane?!' She her mind shouted, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. She nearly screamed when Banshee stepped out into thin air and fell. 'Shit shit shit," she whipped around to look out of her window, searching for a glimpse of her friend, 'Please don't die!' She didn't have the right view to see him dive into the ocean, however, and didn't relax until she heard Charles shout to Beast.

"Banshee's got a location on Shaw!" The girl let out a relieved sigh and let her muscles relax from their tensed position. She turned back to look at Charles and Erik again just as the older man moved to climb on the underside of the jet.

'None of them have any kind of life preservation instinct, I swear.' She thought as Erik disappeared from view and Charles leaned halfway out of the floor to shout something to him. A few moments later, a submarine lifted out of the water and floated beside their jet. Skylar smiled at the sight, happy it had gone so well so far. The empath wanted to kick herself a minute later when things started to go not-so-well.

She watched as one of the mutants from the CIA base crawled out of the submarine and faced the Black Bird. Two huge funnels of wind rose from his palms and Skylar cursed as one of them caught the jet.

"Hang on!" Hank shouted as he tried to keep the plane level. There were alarms screeching and people shouting all around her, but even that cacophony of noise couldn't drown out the sound of the wing breaking off of the jet. "It's gonna get bumpy!"

"Fuck that!" Skylar screamed and put one hand on the low ceiling above her and the wall beside her. Her hands glowed and soon the jet was being coated in her dark energy. A scream tore itself from her throat as she struggled to get a hold over the humongous jet. "Aaagghh! I did not do all that training to die in a fucking plane crash!" She clenched her jaw and pushed harder with her power. As soon as the entire jet was covered, she pulled up on the nose to stop their straight down decent.

A moment later, the load became a lot lighter and she heard Erik grunt at the weight he picked up. His hands were shaking as he helped Skylar land the jet. The landing wasn't exactly smooth, but they did their best. And no one died, so technically it was a success.

"Is everyone alright?" Charles called out and he received a few shouts of affirmation from everyone else.

As soon as they stopped moving, Skylar let her energy dropped and unbuckled her belts. "Good gods get me out of this death trap!" She stumbled to her feet and turned to the exit. Before she could take a step towards it, though, her world spun and she fell to her knees. "Ok, whoa."

"Nyx!" Raven unbuckled her belts as well and knelt beside the brunette on the floor. Raven held out her arm and helped Skylar stand.

"I'm fine, just got a little light headed." We assured the other girls and stood on steadier legs than before. She looked around and noticed that Darwin, Alex, and Hank had all left the jet already. Erik was just running out onto the beach and Skylar looked to Charles. The Brit was talking to Erik through a mental connection.

"You have to go to the void, it's the only place he could be!" Charles ran to the cockpit to look out the window. Skylar turned to Raven as Moira followed after Charles.

"Can you protect Charles and Moira?" She asked the shapeshifter. "Erik might need some backup." Raven nodded quickly.

"Yeah, but," the girl's yellow eyes locked with Skylar's blue ones, "be careful."

"You too." Skylar nodded and ran after Erik. As her feet hit the sand outside and the bright sunlight invaded her vision, Charles's voice entered her thoughts.

'What are you doing?' His voice was stern and Skylar could practically hear the unspoken "Come back here, young lady!"

'Helping Erik,' Skylar said, shading her eyes and running for the destroyed submarine after the metal manipulator. 'Who knows what Shaw has planned! He's might need backup.' Skylar thought as she jumped over debris in her way. She skipped to a stop in front of a large hole in the nautical vehicle and ducked inside. She stepped into a narrow, carpeted hall and looked both ways.

'Go left.' Charles directed her and she smirked as she followed his orders to a large sitting room 'This is where Erik disappeared. The entrance to the void should be her-' Charles's voice suddenly cut off and Skylar froze in fear.

'Charles?!' At the answering silence, the girl almost turned around to run back to the jet. Something must be wrong-

'I'm fine, I just regained contact with Erik.' Skylar sighed in relief and immediately went back to looking for the entrance to what Charles called the "void". The wall directly in front of her shook violently for a moment and Skylar frowned.

She raised her hands and torn the wall apart, plaster flying everywhere as her energy ripped through the hidden doorway. As it fell way, a thick, metal door was uncovered. Skylar walked up to it and put her palms against the cool metal. It was resisting her energy and it felt like she had to work twice as hard to cover it then she had with the wall before.

'Erik is blocking me out,' Charles sounded strained, 'I've got Shaw immobilized, but you need to get in there.'

'Give me two seconds,' Skylar huffed as she pulled the metal wall apart slowly. The horrid screech it made as it tore made her skin crawl. As soon as she had a hole large enough for her to fit through, she stopped and rushed into that room. The support beams and metal pipes that littered the room made it difficult to get in, but she could see Erik and Shaw just a few feet from her.

Erik was wearing Shaw's helmet and talking in a low voice. He was saying something in a language Skylar didn't know, and he was moving a small coin slowly towards Shaw's head. By the time Skylar realized just what Erik was doing with that coin, it was too late.

"Erik, stop!" She screamed, reaching for the coin and tripping over a metal beam. She heard the sickening sound of the metal passing through Shaw's brain matter. She heard the sound of Charles screaming in her head, drowning out almost every other thought. His scream could stop her from feeling Shaw's pain, though.

The brunette clutched her head with her hands and her mouth opened in a silent scream as her powers connected with Shaw. Just like when her brother had died, it was as though her power amplified in the presence of the man's death. She could feel every nerve snap in his mind as if it her happening to her. The pain was unreal. When it finally- finally- stopped, she could only take deep breaths and try to hold herself up. Charles had left her mind and the silence seemed deafening.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." Erik's calm, emotionless voice echoed in the small room. Skylar looked up at the tall man before her and pushed herself off the ground. "It needed to be done." She scoffed as she stepped over the last few pieces of debris to stand in front of her friend.

"Charles had him frozen, Erik," Skylar said. Her voice was quiet, but it still carried enough to echo. "You didn't need to- to…" She shuddered, not able to finish her sentence. "We're supposed to be the good guys here, Erik." Their eyes meet and Skylar could feel both his pain and determination hit her like she'd walked into a wall.

"Nyx, you know as well as I do that killing him was the only choice for me." Erik snapped at her and he took a step toward her. "He killed my mother." Skylar's blue eyes widened and she felt her heart clench as the pain in the man's voice. She held the exact same inside if herself. "I killed him for that. I don't disagree with his view, only his methods."

"What do you mean?" Skylar frowned up at the metal manipulator.

"He was right in thinking the humans will try to destroy us, Nyx." Erik's voice was cold again, his pain covered with a mask. "They are afraid of us- afraid of their species's imminent extinction." The man reached out and put his hands on Skylar's shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. "They will try to get rid of us. We cannot live in harmony with them, it won't work."

Skylar shook her head, "No, Charles-"

"Charles is blind!" Erik spat, stepping back and looking at the floor. "He has never been felt the pain humans can inflict on those they despise…" Erik looked back up at Skylar. "But you have." The brunette's breath hitched. "They killed you brother- murdered him because you were different. They feared your difference and hated it."

Skylar shook her head and closed her eyes against the memories- the fire blazing, burning all around them- "Please, stop." She choked out as a tear slipped down her face.

"You know that I'm right!" Erik insisted, pushing the point. "You lived your life running, alone, and afraid because they would come for you, too!" His voice was rising in volume and Skylar resisted the urger to cover her ears with her hands against the harsh words. "They've shown you how they think of our kind. We need to prepare to fight for our lives against them."

Skylar didn't open her eyes because she knew that she would only see Erik looking at her with a mirror of her own pain and anger. She knew that everything he was saying was true. She knew that the humans would fear them, and some would hate them. She knew he was right. But she knew that there was more to this. "No, no." She shook her head and looked up, squaring her shoulders. "Not all of them."

"What?" Erik asked, scowling.

"Not all of them will hate us, Erik." Skylar said firmly, "It may take a while, but they'll see that we aren't the enemy!"

"They'll never realize that!" Erik shouted at her, "And if they do, how many of us will they have already murdered?!" His hands were shaking with emotion and Skylar was forced to take a step back from how powerful his anger was. The piping and support beams around them were twisting around them and Skylar shot a nervous glance at them. "I should have known you would let Charles convince you that his was the only way. You've been following at his heels like a lost puppy ever since we found you." His voice was deceptively calm as as he sneered at the girl. Skylar's hands balled into fists and she lifted her chin.

"It's not the only way, Erik," she said, "It's the right way."

"Then I can't let you get in my way. I'm sorry, Nyx," Erik raised one hand, palm out, towards her, "But you're too strong to leave in the game if you're not my side."

"Erik, wha-" Skylar didn't get the chance to finish her sentence before a pipe came flying at her head. She threw her hands up and made a shield of energy to protect her head. "Erik, what the hell?!" She had to duck under another piece of metal flying at her. He didn't answer her, and she grit her teeth, gathering her energy. "If that's how it is, then."

Almost as soon as Skylar resolved to fight back, she realized that she was in an awfully equalizing battlefield. No matter what Erik threw at Skylar, she could deflect, and all Skylar had to work with was metal. She might be able to beat him in hand to hand combat, but he wouldn't let her get close enough. She looked for anything to help her and had just decided to lead him out of this room when she felt something wrapped around her right ankle. Before the empath could even look down, the pipe twisted violently to the side and the girl went down with a scream.

Her ankle had snapped. Skylar groaned at the pain, which turned into a shout as the pipe tightened it's hold on her ankle while more trapped her wrists together. She looked up to snark at Erik who stood over her with a sad expression.

"Erik…" the empath breathed. The man's face crumpled for just a moment and Skylar could see all if the pain and sadness.

"I'm sorry." And then pain exploded on the back of her head and her world went dark.

A/N: Holy shit that one was long! I actually had to split this chapter up it was so long. So, there is the first part of the climax, the next part will be out as soon as I can finish it! Was it ok? Awful? Lemme know- Love RGIG


	9. Chapter 9

CH. 9 **(WARNINGS: Violence, Swearing)**

 **A/N: Yo, I won't make you guys wait any longer, please enjoy!- Love RGIG**

The first thing Skylar registered when she came to was the nearly blinding headache. Then next was the overwhelming pain coming from her ankle. The brunette bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming when she tried to sit up and jostled the broken bones. With very slow and cautious movements, Skylar was able to sit up and assess her current situation.

Her wrists and ankles were still bound together by Erik's handiwork. She made quick work of destroying the restraints with her telekinesis, hissing when she brushed her broken ankle again. She lifted a hand to gently press against the large knot on the back of her head from whatever Erik had knocked her out with. When she pulled her hand back it came away bloody. Skylar simply wiped the blood away on the leg of her suit and frowned. So far, she had a broken ankle and a head wound to go with her concussion.

The empath knew that she couldn't worry about those things just now, though. With the way Erik had been talking and how he had attacked her, it was obvious he was going to cause trouble with everyone else. She needed to get back on the beach to help Charles and the others. When she tried to stand, though, she knew something would have to be done about her ankle first. She could hardly move her leg at all without a searing pain, let alone try to provide back up to anyone.

Casting her gaze around the small room, Skylar looked for something to splint her leg with. She settled on a piece of piping and a long electrical cord that had been severed from the source. She levitated the makeshift splint within reach and then turned to her ankle. With a clenched jaw and shaky hands, she wrapped her foot in her black energy and took a deep breath through her nose. With a quick jerk, she set the bone.

 _CRACK!_

"AAAGGHHHH!" Skylar screamed and quickly bit down on her fist to stifle the sound. That was definitely not something she ever wanted to do again. After she had caught her breath, the empath quickly fashioned her splint and crawled to her feet. With her weight resting almost entirely on her left leg, she limped over to the gaping hole in the wall Erik had no doubt made. She could see sand a few feet down on the other side of it and formed a shield that she stepped onto. She lowered the shield to the beach and let it dissipate as she looked for her friends.

At the water's edge, she saw Erik and Charles fighting, rolling in the sand and punching each other. Erik got the best of the smaller man and stood, pointing his hand in the air towards the ships at sea. For the first time, Skylar noticed to missiles headed away from the beach. It took her less than a second to process that the humans had deployed their missiles at them and that Erik had taken that chance to strike back.

Her hands shot up and started to glow. Her face contorted as she concentrated on trying to wrap all of the explosives with her power and pull them away from the ships. She slipped when shots rang out from Moira's gun, startling her. She quickly turned back to the missiles, while Erik was distracted and dropped them all into the ocean. Just as the last one hit the water, a final shot was fired. A scream filled the air and Skylar turned, shocked that Moira had actually managed to hit Erik with a metal bullet.

"Charles!" Erik's shout sounded far away and Skylar's vision tunneled as she saw Charles fall. Time slowed as he fell and it seemed to take hours for him to hit the sand. Skylar's breathing and heartbeat stopped and pain bloomed in her back, just above her legs. Her knees shook and her legs tingled for a moment and she struggled to keep upright.

Then Charles landed and time caught up with the girl again. "Charles!" She screamed and ran forward, the pain in her ankle not even registering in her haste to get to him. Erik reached their friend before her but with a flick of her hand he was sent flying backwards. The empath slid on the rough sand beside Charles and dropped to her knees. "Charles! Oh gods," she gently turned him over and lifted his head to rest on her lap, "Charles are you ok?! Tell me you're ok!" Tears streamed down her face as she pushed his hair back and cupped his cheek.

"I'm fine, love. I'm fine, I just..I-I can't- I c-can't feel my legs," his face scrunched up in confusion, "I can't feel my legs." He repeated himself again and slowly, the pain started to show in his expression. Erik and Moira had both made it to their side by then and Moira had a stream of constant apologies tumbling from her lips.

Erik closed his eyes for a moment before he looked up at the CIA agent with rage rolling off of him in waves. "You did this." He said, pointing his hand at her. Her dogtags jumped up around her throat, suffocating her. The woman clutched at her throat and struggled for air as Erik tightened the chain around her neck.

"Erik, no," Charles gasped, reaching for the other man, "Stop. She didn't do this Erik...You did. You did this." Skylar pushed his hair back again as he looked imploringly at the older man.

The telekinetic girl wasn't listening to a thing begin said around her. Her only focus was the man below her. She had known something had happened to his legs from the way she had felt when he was shot, but… She couldn't imagine Charles not being able to walk. The image of the young man in a wheelchair for the rest of his life left a cold, twisting feeling in her gut. He was so full of life, of energy, he couldn't be confined to a chair forever.

Erik's voice broke through the haze her mind had created and she vaguely heard him asking Charles to stand by his side. "We want the same thing, Charles!" He was pleading with the man he had just crippled. Skylar didn't bother looking up, knowing that Charles wouldn't say yes to him. A few moments later, Raven was kneeling at Charles's other side. Skylar leaned back so the two could talk.

She had seen the way Raven had looked at Erik. She knew that the other girl loved Charles, but that wasn't enough to keep her with him. When she stood and walked away, Skylar reached out and gently wiped away Charles's tears. As they left, the telepath took a shuddering breath and hissed when he shifted his injury. Skylar felt the bullet grinding against his bones as if it were her own. She bit her lip and the metallic taste of blood hit her tongue.

Her mind worked furiously. Images of Charles from before all this mess mixing with images of him sat in a wheelchair. His utter joy when Skylar had perfected her powers was marred with the devastating pain he felt when the bullet lodged into his spine. Skylar closed her eyes and shook her head, 'No!' She shouted at herself. 'Don't mourn another loss! Fix it!' Her inner voice was firm, pushing away her jumbled memories and thoughts. 'Fix it!' But how? 'Fix it!' What can I do? 'Fix it!' She shook her head again, "I can fix it." She whispered to herself, so quiet it was almost inaudible. "I can fix it." Her voice shook, but she nodded, a plan forming. "I can fix it." She said again, and opened her eyes to see Charles looking at her with concern.

"Skylar?" The girl gave him a watery smile.

"It's alright," she kissed his forehead and gently moved his head from her lap, "I can fix it." She turned him on his stomach carefully and searched for the wound in his back. The others were gathering around them now.

Beast tried to grab onto Skylar's hands gently, "Nyx, careful-"

Skylar snatched her hands away, snapping at her friend, "I can fix it!"

"Hank," Charles's voice was calm, "Leave her be." Skylar couldn't tell if Charles had read her mind and saw what she was planning to do, or if he was just trusting her. Hell, maybe he was just humouring her, it didn't matter. Skylar was determined to help him, no matter what.

When Hank leaned back, Skylar refocused her attention on Charles. Her hands hovered over the hole the bullet had torn through his suit for a second before her energy tore it even more and pulled the fabric away from his wound. She lightly placed her hands over the bloody mess that was his lower back and closed her eyes.

'Charles, can you hear me?' She called out mentally.

'Yes, love.' His voice was soft, though he sounded a bit strained.

'This is going to hurt. A lot. I'm sorry.' She warned him and she let her energy pool in her hands.

'It's alright, love.' Skylar nodded and let herself slip into a meditative state. Deep in her mind, she found the source of her empathic power and focused every bit of her power on Charles.

Within seconds it felt as though she was two people at once. She could still feel herself, her power gathering in her hands as she steadied them over Charles, but she could feel Charles as well. She searched for the pain ending just above his middle back, and then nothing. She felt for his spine and just where the bullet cut into it.

Her hands glowed and the bullet was lifted out of his back. Charles grunted, but otherwise kept quiet and still. Skylar let the bullet roll off of him and hit the sand as she pushed her energy into his wound. She coated his spine, his muscles, and his nerves, her arms shaking with the effort.

She had never attempted to move things so small and intricate. She had never tried to move someone's body at all, let alone the individual parts inside of one. This had to be done, though. She could feel the foreign energy push into Charles's body and wrap around him, spreading a cold feeling. As soon as she had everything she needed, she took a deep breath and forced the bones to come together. Charles screamed, his whole body tensing. Skylar locked her jaw and bit her cheeks as her body tensed as well and she felt his spine move.

Panting heavily she moved to the next step. She carefully merged the muscles back together where the bullet had ripped through them. This time she screamed with Charles. Her arms shook violently and her own back ached along with his, but she kept going. She finished with his muscles and poured all her energy into reconnecting his nerves. As soon as her power brushed against them, it felt as though they had caught fire.

Touching a raw nerve felt like flaying her own skin and then setting fire to what lie beneath. Skylar's stomach churned and she had to choke back bile as she reconnected nerve after nerve. Finally- _finally_ \- after what seemed like hours had passed, Skylar felt feeling come back to Charles's legs. As soon as the last nerve was molded back into place Skylar dropped her energy and her eyes rolled back in her head.

She gasped for air as her body slumped to the side, unable to hold her up any longer. She hit the sand just as Charles sat up. He reached out and pulled her head into his lap, reversing their earlier position. She felt something running from her nose and her eyes stung.

"Skylar, oh love," he was crying and he swept Skylar's hair back. Her eyes fluttered closed and she couldn't hear anything over the pounding in her head. She couldn't think straight, and everything felt so far away. It was like she had been submerged in water, but she felt like she needed to listen to something. "-open your eyes, love, don't fall asleep." That voice...it sounded so familiar. Skylar fought to open her eyes like they asked. "Let me see those pretty blues, yeah?"

She cracked her eyes open, blinking away a red haze, "Charles?" Her throat ached and she licked her lips, tasting blood again.

"Yes, love, it's me. I'm here, stay with me." Skylar heard him say something about Hank and a plane. Apparently she needed medical attention immediately, but she felt like that was wrong. Wasn't Charles the one who was hurt?

"Charles are you ok?" Her voice was quiet and she could hardly hear it herself as her eyes start to slip closed again.

"Yes," Charles said his voice breaking, "Yes, love, I'm fine. Thanks to you." He smiled through his tears and placed a soft kiss to her forehead, "And I can never thank you enough."

"I can think of a way," Skylar mumbled, struggling to stay conscious just a few moments longer. She needed to tell him something and it couldn't wait any longer.

"How?" A tear slid down his cheek as he smiled down at the girl.

"You can kiss me you silly man," Skylar said, her head spinning. "I've been waiting for it since I meet yo-" she was cut off by a pair of lips crashing onto hers. The empath smiled into the kiss and closed her eyes. When Charles leaned back she sighed happily, feeling a weight lifted from her. "Finally."

The last thing she heard was Charles's laughter before she let her eyes close and welcomed the darkness.

 **A/N: Hokay, so there's the last bit of the climax! Next is the last chapter- well the last REAL chapter at least. I have some notes on this whole story that I let my brother read and he said that they were funny and I should post them. So I will, because fuckin YOLO. ANYWAYS, lemme know what you thought? Was it awful? Was it not so awful? Even slightly enjoyable? Reviews are welcome! -Love RGIG**


	10. Chapter 10

CH. 10 **(WARNINGS: um? I don't think there are any? Maybe?)**

 **A/N: Yo, so here's the last proper chapter! Sorry it took so long- my friends kidnapped me for a few days. But I'll just cut to the chase and let you read. Enjoy- Love RGIG**

It was a beautiful day. The skies were a bright blue and filled with huge, fluffy white clouds. The breeze was gentle and the air pleasantly cool. All in all, it was Charles's favourite kind of day. The good weather had prompted a walk along the grounds which landed him in the gardens just as Moira walked outside.

"Oh, there you are, Charles." The woman smiled warmly at him and Charles smiled back. He did like her as she was an amazingly kind hearted and caring person, but he knew that her feelings for him were different than that of just a friend. The brunette walked over to him and stood beside him with an almost shy smile.

"Moira, dear," Charles started, turning to his friend fully, "What can I do for you?" She flushed lightly at his look and Charles worked to keep the sympathy off of his face. He knew how it felt to have unrequited feelings for someone, but he couldn't do anything about it.

"Well, I just wanted to ask what you were planning to do next," her tone turned serious and all traces of her earlier blush were gone. "Now that the crisis has been averted…" She trailed off and Charles nodded, looking out over the flowers before them.

"Ahh, yes," a wistful smile stretched across his face, "the future." He chuckled and looked to the large mansion behind them. "I want to turn this place in a school, actually. A place for mutants to learn about and control their powers." He locked eyes with Moira again and shrugged, "I'll train them. We're still G-Men after all, just without the G."

"No," Moira shook her head and looked back at the mansion as well, "You're your own team now...You're X-Men." Charles laughed and nodded.

"Yes, that does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it." They stood in a comfortable silence for a moment before Moira cleared her throat and looked around.

"Where is Skylar?" She asked, raising her eyebrows at the man, "The two of you are usually attached at the hip."

"Oh." Now it was Charles who blushed and looked away, "Yes well-" he cleared his throat, "Skylar was just-"

"Coming to find her boyfriend after he disappeared without a word." A smooth voice cut in to the conversation. The two turned to see Skylar walking over to them from the direction of the back door. She stopped next to Charles, slipping her hand into his much larger one. "You were supposed to come help Alex and I practice." She said, turning to Charles with a fake pout.

"I'm sorry, love," Charles said, kissing the top of her head lightly and tugging her closer to his body. "The time must have gotten away fro-" Skylar cut the telepath off waving a had in the air.

"Water under the bridge," she dismissed the topic quickly and turned to Moira with a kind smile. "Hello, Moira. I haven't seen you around for a few days."

"Yes, well," the CIA agent motioned vaguely with her hands, "I've been fairly busy with meetings and debriefings about Cuba."

The tension in the air suddenly spiked and Skylar winced at it. Charles sighed and looked down at the girl attached to his side sadly. She looked back up at him, her blue eyes locking with his lighter ones.

'You don't have to if you don't want to.' She said mentally, her expression softening.

'No, this must be done.' Charles shook his head and Skylar nodded. The telepath turned back to Moira with a sad look.

"What is it, Charles?" Moira asked, in a no-nonsense tone. Her lips were pressed in a thin line and her arms were crossed.

"The CIA must never find us, Moira." He began and Moira looked relieved.

"Of course!" She nodded, "And believe me, I will _never_ tell them where you are." She fixed both of the mutants with a firm stare, "They can do whatever they like to me, and I will never talk."

"I know, love," Charles said, sadness dripping from his tone as he let go of Skylar and reached out to hug the woman in front of him. "We all know." He kissed her forehead, a tear rolling down his cheek as erased all of her memories of them.

As Moira slumped, going unconscious, Charles gently lifted her into his arms with a world weary sigh. Skylar put a hand on his shoulder as he turned to her. "She would understand, Chaz." The brunette said, using her ridiculous nickname to try and lighten his mood. It worked to make Charles smile and they started towards the mansion slowly.

The Brit looked down at the woman in his arms and sighed. "I hope she would. I only want her to be able to lead a normal life. The CIA would tear her apart for information and I-" he cut himself off and Skylar simply wound a shaky arm around him as they walked.

Darwin met them at the back door, sending a sympathetic look at Moira. Wisely, the boy didn't mention the unconscious woman, though. "Hey, Nyx," he turned to the telekinetic girl, "Alex sent me to find you. He said something about making sure you and Charles did get distracted again-" Skylar quickly cut him off, blushing furiously.

"Does he have to bring that up every time?" She exclaimed, stomping into the house and shouting for the blonde. Charles rolled his eyes at Darwin's grin and let the younger man follow after his girlfriend. The telepath found Hank and asked him to take Moira home when he drove into town, he and left the woman asleep on a couch.

The telepath walked slowly to the bunker where he knew Skylar and Alex would be waiting for him, revelling in the use of his legs. He would never take walking for granted again, and would forever be thankful for Skylar's quick action on that beach. The girl hospitalized herself for two weeks with exhaustion after that. Her arms had yet to cease shaking, though she could mostly keep the movement to a minimum now.

Hank had said that she had strained something while she worked with such delicate parts of Charles's international organs. Her hands would shake badly for a long time- perhaps permanently. Charles scowled at that as he descended the stairs to the bunker. On top of the strain she had caused herself saving his spine, Skylar had suffered a major head trauma and as a result had frequent and rather intense headaches. Thankfully her ankle had been set quickly and efficiently and had healed quickly. As Charles pulled the door open he sighed.

Skylar had been so optimistic and cheerful these past few weeks. She hadn't let her medical diagnosis affect her mood in the slightest, simply accepting it and moving on to the next step. Charles caught sight Skylar and Alex running about on the other end of the bunker and smiled. The empath had immediately started asking when she could start training again, wanting to develop her powers more.

Every time Charles had tried to tell her that she needed to take it easy for a while, she had silenced him by pulling him in for a kiss. A blush coloured the Brit's cheeks as he thought back to those moments. After the beach, Skylar had become rather tactile and she had admitted to simply making up for lost time as well as reassuring herself that this was all real. And if that was what Alex had meant by getting "distracted" Charles wouldn't disagree. They often would forget where they were or what they were meant to be doing when-

"Are you just going to stand there, Charles, or will you get in in here already?" Skylar's shout pulled Charles back to the present. The brunette had her hands on her hips and Alex was standing behind her smirking at him.

"I've kept you waiting long enough, I suppose." Charles conceded as he walked all the way into the bunker. "What are you two wanting to work on today?"

Charles lost himself in helping Skylar and Alex develop their powers for a few hours. Though, he couldn't help but notice when Skylar's arms started to shake too badly, or when she pressed her fingers to her temples, warding off a headache. Just before he could suggest they take a break, though, Skylar would set her jaw and get back to work. She was so stubborn, so focused. Charles loved it, even if it did exasperate him from time to time. The way her face lit up whenever she accomplished her task or passed a milestone, however, was enough to erase all exasperation.

Skylar would look up at Charles every now and then as she worked to keep her shields up against the onslaught of Alex's destructive energy. Even now, weeks after they had first kissed on that god forsaken beach, she still got butterflies in her stomach when he was near her.

The empath knew that she had damaged herself- maybe irreparably- when she had fixed his injury. She knew that she had sacrificed a lot for him when she had decided to heal him. And she knew that she would never regret that decision. Every time they walked together through the gardens, danced to a song on the radio, or even just stood in each other's arms, Skylar knew that she would do it all over again if she had to.

Skylar had been living in the dark before. She had been alone and on the run. Never had she had so much as a friend, and her world was bleak and cast in shadows. Charles had found her, though. He had found her, and he had pulled her out of the dark. Now she had friends, a home where she felt safe and loved, and she would never be alone again.

As Charles flashed one of his charming smiles at her, the girl knew that she loved him and he loved her. And that was all a girl could ask for in a crazy world like theirs.

 **The End.**

 **A/N: And the story comes to a close. Thank you all so much for reading, favouriting/following, and reviewing! I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you had as much fun reading it. I'll be posting my notes on this story soon because I think you might enjoy them? Also (and please don't get your hopes up) I might write a sequel. IT'S A BIG MAYBE THOUGH SO PLZ CHILL. I just had an idea for a sequel, but honestly I might get too lazy and I'm going on vacay soon so…? Who knows? Anyways, lemme know what you thought? Was the ending too boring? Too sappy? Not sappy enough? Lemme know. I'll see you guys soon.- Love RGIG**


	11. Story Notes

**A/N: Hokay so, this isn't a new chapter guys (sorry). These are my notes that I originally wrote only for myself. My brother read them, though, and he said my "paraphrasing speak" was funny. So I thought some of you might enjoy it. So, enjoy..maybe?- Love RGIG**

Find Me In the Dark Plot

Ch. 1 √

Gives a little background on Skylar. Eric and Charles show up at her workplace. They have her join the team.

Ch. 2 √

Basically the 'codenames' scene from the movie with Skylar added in. Necessary for development, but I hate writing scenes words for word.

Ch. 3/4 √/√

Needs more Charles and Skylar interaction. Maybe have them talk a little about Charles and Eric going after the lead on Shaw alone? (Edit: Split here because of length) Then when C&E are gone the 'Shaw's here' scene with Skylar. I want to save Darwin, though cause he's cool af. Skylar gets beat tf up, though cause...Idk I'm a sadist I guess.

(Edit: I got carried away and wrote too much for the Charles and Skylar scene so I had to split this chapter up.)

Ch. 5 √

The first bit happens without Skylar- cause she's beat tf up atm. Basically I want to have the whole "go home" "fuck that we're fighting" convo between Charles and the kids except instead of them being like "they killed Darwin! We gotta get em back" they'll be like "bro did you see what they did to Skylar?!- fuck that we're gonna murk em for that shit". (Edit: find somewhere to squeeze in a heartfelt chat with E&C about C's feelings for S. C is super flustered and cute an shit) After all that, Skylar wakes up in the mansion. She's kinda fucked up still chill. Charles is there, and they chit chat a bit. Fluffy, but they don't get together here- I'm saving that.

Ch. 6 √

Training mostly. There can be some bonding with the team. (Example: sky throws some shit at Hank while he runs. She tests her forcefield against Alex maybe.) The scene with E&C about the "special place in your memories" comes up with Skylar, too. This is where we find out about how Allen died. Super tragic. Tears and hugs an shit. Angsty/fluffy but they still don't shack up- saving it for later.

(Edit: Yeah this mostly turned out to be the 'How Allen Died' scene. Fun to write tho)

Ch. 7 ×

Bonding. I want everyone to connect here. Mystique shows Skylar her blue self and Sky's like "bro that's bomb af! You should look like that all the time!" And Mystique is like "...but I'm blue." So Skylar's like "blue is bomb af- you know what, I'll be blue with you." And then they cut and dye her hair like I have it drawn a million and eight times. Everybody's like "whoa..." And Skylar gives a whole "we're different- but different is not a synonym for bad" monologue. They have a party of sorts- Skylar introduces a drinking game- things get wild. (Not really wild, they mostly just laugh a lot). At the end Charles and Skylar fall asleep on the couch together. (Everyone thinks it's cute af bc it is)

(Edit: I love this idea, I really wanted it, but it just won't happen. Maybe I can make it some kind of "Lost Chapter"? Someday. *sigh*)

Ch. 8 √

The night before the big "beach in Cuba" shit. Everyone is asleep except Skylar. She can't stop thinking about shit and suddenly Charles is like, "bro, you good? Thinking pretty loud over there," in her brain. She's like, "damn sorry bro, didn't mean to keep you up". Charles goes, "no worries brah, I'm up anyway- can't sleep " then he comes to her room and they talk for a while. They fall asleep together and shit. The next morning they wake up and are like "... Thanks for chilling with me." And kind of awkwardly slide off in separate directions. Skylar talks to the others and they get on the plane. The Beast scene happens, too.

Ch. 9 √

"Beach in Cuba" scenes. Things get pretty serious here. Things basically go the same as in the movie, everybody splits up, things go a little crazy. (I'll do a more detailed note on this chapter separately.) Skylar gets hurt somewhere in there- breaks an ankle or something. In the end, Shaw still dies, and Eric deflects the bullet into Charles's back. But instead of nobody doing shit, Skylar freaks tf out and crawls over to Charles and fixes him with her telekinesis- wipes her out, though. Before she gets done fixing his back and passes out, though, they finally confess all the love shit. *fireworks and shit go off while someone screams "FINALLY" in the background* Eric still leaves and Mystique still goes with him, but it's more shocking for some reason?

Ch. 10 Epilogue √

Back at the mansion, almost like the end scene with Charles and Moira. Basically everybody is chilling. Charles and Moira are talking about the school (x-men pun included) and she asks about Skylar. Skylar shows up and does some couple-y shit with Charles. Moira's memory still gets erased though.

 **(CH. 9 separate note)**

Ch. 9 Notes (FMITD)

Ok, so we got some pretty serious shit going on in this chapter. I don't really remember how the scenes go (to a point) in the film, but I hate writing shit exactly the same way it is in the movies anyway, so it's all good.

Anyway, I'll start with when Skylar really gets involved. At some point, Tempest (I think that's tornado guy's name at least) is gonna try and and bring the black bird down with some tornado-y shit. The plane's going down, people are screaming, and Skylar's like, "fuck this, i did not do all that training to die in a plane crash." So she stands up and attempts to land the plane via telekinesis. She has to have Erik's help, though, cause, ya know- planes are heavy. But they do it, mostly. It's kind of a rough landing but everybody's cool so it's all good.

Erik runs off after Shaw, Banshee's already off fighting somewhere and Beast and Havok are going at it with Angel and Azazel with some help from Darwin, so it's basically Charles, Moira, Raven, and Skylar on the plane. Charles is busy with trying to help Erik and Raven and Moira are basically useless in this scene so Skylar goes outside and into the sub. She looks around for Erik and Shaw and finds them just in time to watch as Erik kills Shaw.

She's like, "holy fuck bro wtf?! I thought we were supposed to be the good guys!" And Eric gives her this whole "mutant oppression" and "I am a dick because of society" monologue. At the end of it he asks her to join him to fight against the humans that killed her brother. But Skylar basically tells him to fuck off with his pity party and that he is just like Shaw.

Apparently this pisses Erik off. The two of them fight a bit and Erik says some shit like, "I should have known you'd side with Charles. (Insert some insulting way of say you love him here)" and then Skylar's ankle gets broken and Erik knocks her out. When she comes to, she snaps her ankle into place and makes a splint for it before hobbling out if the ship through the big hole Erik made earlier.

Outside, everything is going to hell. Missiles are flying ((everywhere, passing each other and shit. Russia's like "AAHHH MOTHER LAND!")) towards the ships out at sea and Moira is trying shoot Erik (what an idiot btw. He can fucking control metal hoe.) Skylar is about to try and take hold of the missiles with her own powers when Erik and Moira (in a group effort really) shoot Charles in the back. Skylar loses her shit.

She makes all the missiles explode midair and she throws Erik and moira both back out of the way. She flies over to Charles and holds him up. "Charles? Charles are you ok? Tell me you're ok!" She's crying, begging him to be ok.

"I'm fine, love. I'm fine, I just..I-I can't- I c-can't feel my legs," he's really confused, in pain. Erik and Moira are by their side at this point and Erik does the whole "this is all your fault you stanky ass hoe" bit and tries to choke her to death. Charles stops him and Erik gives the whole "we can fight together, Charles. I want you by my side."

But nah, that shit doesn't fly and Erik is leaving. Skylar doesn't give one shit about what any of them were saying, though. During all the dialogue she's been thinking of how to fix Charles's legs. At this point she's like, fuck it it has to work.

She gently lays Charles down on the sand and gets on her knees. "Don't worry, Charles. I can fix it, I can fix it." She's repeating it now, over and over, mostly to herself. She has to convince herself it'll work. She couldn't stand it if she did nothing. She she flips him over and runs her hands over his back, feeling where the bullet went in and removing it. Then she put her hand over the wound and closes her eyes. She reaches out with her empathy to feel Charles's pain and to connect with his body. Suddenly her hands start to glow and she's forcing Charles's nerves and bones to come back together. It hurts like hell. Since she's connected to him through her powers she feels every bit of the pain with him.

It works. As soon as Skylar feels Charles getting feeling back in his legs she falls to the side, limp and on the verge of blacking out. She got blood coming out if her nose from the strain and a single, bloody tears fall as from her eye. Charles sits up and pulls her into his lap. He pushes her hair away from her face and tries to keep her awake. "No love, don't close your eyes. Look at me, let me see those pretty blues, yeah?"

"Charles?" She asks, blinking rapidly, trying to get her vision to stop being so blurry.

"Yes, love, it's me. I'm here, stay with me." He looks up and shouts for Hank and the others. They need to get Skylar medical attention immediately.

"Charles are you ok?" Skylar's voice is quiet and she's nodding off now.

"Yes," Charles replies, his voice breaking, "Yes, love, I'm fine. Thanks to you." He smiles through his tears and places a soft kiss to her forehead, "And I can never thank you enough."

"I can think of a way," Skylar mumbles, struggling to stay conscious just a few moments longer.

"How?" Charles asks, tears still streaming steadily down his face.

"You can kiss me you silly man," she says. "I've been waiting for it since I meet yo-" her words are cut off by a pair of lips crashing onto hers. She smiles into the kiss and closes her eyes. When Charles leans back she sighs happily, "Finally." And with that she passes out.

 **A/N: So there's that. Maybe that was fun to read? Maybe it was the most boring thing you've ever put yourself through? Lemme know. -Love RGIG**


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